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PanguinBooks The Wolf Children

ChadesMaclean wasborn in Lancashirein 1946.He took an honours degreeat New College,Oxford, and since has worked at varied careers. His other booksinclude.Island on the Edgeof the V(uld, a history of the Hebridean island of St Kild4 and a satirical novel, The PatheticPhallus. CharlesM*clean lives and works in London and Scodand,

Ma,clean Ch,arles

The Wolf Children

PenguinBoohs

For my mother and father

PenguinBooksLtd, Harmondsworth, Middleseq England Penguin Books, 625 Madison Avenue, Ncw York. New York rooz,z.U.S.A. PenguinBooks Ausaalia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Ausuzlia PenguinBooksCanadaLtd, z8or John Sueet" Markharq Ontario, Canadar.3n rr4 PenguinBooks(N,2.) Ltd, r8z-r9o WairauRoad, Auckland ro, New Zer,ltnd First publishedin GreatBritain by Allen Lane rg77 First publishedin the United Statesof Arnerica by Hill and Wang 1978 Publishedin PenguinBooksrg79 C-opyright@ CharlesMacleaq 1977 All rights reserved Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading Set in Monorype Ehrhardt Except in the United Statesof America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,be lent, re-sold, hired ouq or otherwisecirculated without the publisher's prior consentin any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being irnposedon the subsequentpurchaser

Contents

List of Illustrations vlt M"p xii Introduction ChaptersOneto Twelve Epilogue Glossary Bibliography Notes Index

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29r 303 305 313 32s

List of lllustrations

r The Santal village of Denganaliain Mayurbhanj, Orissa" wherethe wolf children weretakensoonafter their capture z Typical Bengalcountryside 3 J. A L. Singhwith his wife RachetanddaughterPreetiLota, c. ryo6 4 St John's Church, Midnapore 5 LouiseMani Das,a former inmate of the Singhs'orphanage 6 The ReverendSingh witlr someof his orphans 7 A Santaltribesmanin Mayurbhanj 8 A tribal hunting parry in May 9 The Indian wolf (canislillus pallipes) ro An abandonedtermitary similar to the one in which the wolveshad madetheir den rr LasaMarandi, who took part asa boy in the captureof the wolf children rz The temple and tank below Amarda Road dak bungalow, wherethe ReverendSinghbroughtthe wolf children on the night of the caprure 13 Kamala and Amala soon after they were brought to the orphanage 14 and 15 Kamalarunning on all fours 16, r7, 18 Kamala'smodesof eatingand drinking,a. r9z5 19 Kamala with chicken entrails on the moiilan behind the orphanage zo Kamalain the front of the orphanagecompound zr Kamalascratchingthe ground in imitation of a roostershe befriended zz Kamalabiting at a spiryringtop z3 Reachingup for a plate offood as part of an exercisefor learningto stand z4 Carryinga toy in her mouth

25 Kamala would sit for hours in a corner of tlre room, isolated from the world z6 $cratching at the courtyard gate to get out z7 Disappeanng into the lantana bushes at the bottom ofthe garden z8 Playing with the orphanage dogs z9 Running across the courtyard with a dead chicken (or possibly a pigeon) in her mouth

3o Receivinga biscuit from Mrs Singh 3 r Kamalarejectspuppy 32 Flangingfrom the branchesof a tree helped to straighten her legs 33 Kamala fust stood on ro June r9z3 34 Kamala walking by herself for the first time 35 The Reverend Singh, Kamala and Mrs Singh pose for the photographer ofthe Statesnaz, November 19z6 36 The orphanage group. Kamala is sitting on tlle ground between the Singhs JI

Robert M. Zinggin Red C.rossuniform

38 Bishop Herbert Pakenhanr-Walsh Thcfollowing illustrationsare reproducedby permissionof the El Paso Cntennial Museutnof The Unhersity o_f?exasat El Paso: rj, 14, 16, rZ, rgr 2or2rr 22, 23r25, 26,27, 28,3o, 3t, jz, gj, 94 and36.

Acknowledgements

Many people have helped me in gathering material for this book and without their cooperation, encouragement and generosity it would not have been rvritten. I can never hope to thank all ofthem or express my gratitude adequately to clear a debt that in most part can neither be measured nor repaid. If (in attempting to do so) I overlook anyone, my gratitude and obligation to them are no less felt. In America I was given valuable help and warm hospitality by Dr Louise Bates Ames, Madge Beamiss, Margaret Beamiss, Mrs Charles Bohlen, Richard Cooper, Charles'W. Dunn, Rex Gerold, Kate Grimond, Tom O'Laughlir5 Christine Merchant, Edward M. M. Warburg, Mary Warburg, Emma Zingg and Henry Zngg. In India I received great kindness from Yulin Chen, to whom I am especially grateful; and from Dr P. K. Bhowmick and Dr Ashok Ghosh of the Department of Anthropology at Calcutta University, who helped me with every aspect of my research and by enlisting the welcome aid of the Government of Bengal enabled me to travel in otherwise inaccessible places. In Midnapore the headmaster of the Collegiate School Flaripada Mondal, was my tireless guide, interpreter, teacher and friend and without his assisfance I could have achieved little. I am also indebted to Ashok Mozumdar and Ajit Kumar Ghosh who accompanied me on two expeditions into theiungle areas of Bengal and Orissa, and to Biduhuti Bhusan who finally led us to the village of Denganalia. In particular I would lite to thank Dr B. B. and Mrs M. Mohanty for their unforgettable hospitaliry. Among those who gave interviews and helped with my research in other ways I owe a special debt to Mrs Preeti Lota Jan4 a daughter of the Rev. Singh, and to Mrs M. M. Singt\

his daughter-in-law.I would atso like to thank Miss Sipn Banerjee,Barbara Barnes,Narayan Baska, SureshkarBhani Deo, M. Bhaumic\ Dr Biswamoy Biswas, Birendra Nath Bose,K. C. Bose,tle Rt Rev. R. W. Bryan, Bankim Chaulir, A. K. Chowdhury, Kunja Mohan Chowdhury the Church Missionary Society, Father Ian Clarke, Louise Mani Dag Monindro Das, Naren Nath Das, RagunathDas, A. K. DaslL AbanikantoDey, SurendraMohan Dey, Mrs Ganguly,P. C. Gangulg B. K. Ghoslr"S, K. Ghoslq Ram ChandraBiri, Sir PercivalGriffiths, CaptainM. Guin, Nangi Hembron,the Rev. Lionel Hewitt, JageswarKhatua, Timot}y Khatua, Ghambir Mahato, S. Maity, Sunaram Maji, Mrs Gita Mallik, Lasa Marandi, Dr B. K. and Mrs Mohanty, D. Mukeriee,Dr K. M. Naha, E. G. Nathaniel,Dr D. Nyogi, the Oxford Mission, Mr Pal, Umakana Pattanaik, Bimoy Ron Dr D. S. Roy, Mrs RanjanaRoy, RashbehariRoy, Dr Santra,Dr K. C. Sarbad.hicari, Dr Jyotimoya Sarma,N. E. Seager,Dr U. Sengupta, Gajendra Shankar,Ajoy Kumar Singb A. R. Singh, Niren Singb S. C. Singh, S. K. Singh, the Rev. Krishna SwamS Father Peter Thorman, the United Society for Propagating the Gospeland the Rev. Michael Westall. My thanks to the principal and staff of Bishop's College, Calcutta and the staff of the Library of CongressManuscript Division, the CentennialMuseum of El Paso,the India Office Library and the London Library. I am grateful too to Diana Cooksonand JaneJameswho typed the manuscriptwith such I owe more than a professionaldebt to skill and perseverance. Peter CarsonofAllen Lane for believingin this book from its early, unpromising beginnings and subsequently for his patienceand editorial exactitude. €ncouragement, I would alsolike to thank the following for the useof copyright materials quoted in this book: the Gesell Institute of Child Developmeng the Library of Congress,Gerhard A. Geselland Mrs Preti Lota Jana. Finally I would like to thank Edward Goldsmith, who introducedme to the subjectof feral man and suggestedthat I write not the book I havewritten, but one somethinglike it.

MAYURBHANJ (oRlssA) DensesatJmgla

. Nafgoia oDEnganalla

Introduction

ln rg4z Harper and Brothers of New York published a book called Wolf{h;1tr tn and Feral Man. Although a work of some academic pretensions, representedas 'a definitive review by a well-known anthropologist' of the extant literature on extremecasesof isolation,'wildt men and animal-reared children, it anticipated a wide public by the incorporation of a unique and sensationaldocument. Held to be the true accountby an Indian missionaryof his attempts to rehabilitate two children recently found living with wolves in the iungles of Bengal, The Diarl of the Wolfchildren of Midnapore by the Rev. J. A. L. Singh, available for the first time in print, promised to supply the reader with 'a series of facts such as no novelist's imagination could have invented'. The many legendary heroes from Romulus to Tarzan, known to have been suckled by wild beasts and to have acquired in consequencethe more desirable qualities of their foster-mother's species,failed to find a place in the book alongside the Midnapore wolf children on the grounds that they belonged to the realms of mythology a different province of study. The author af Wolf-Children and Feral Man, F.:obet M. Zngg, an associateprofessor of anthropology at Denver University, preferred to concentrateon 'historical' cases,classifiedby the eighteenthcentury naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, as homoferus or feral nxrn - an altogether less appealing creature, which ran about on all fours having gained the habits, bodily strength and sharp sensesof an animal, but lost the human faculties ofspeechand reason.To give persp€ctiveand background

to the Midnapore diary, Dr Zingg included in his collection of feral oddities the famousaccountsof the Wild Boy of Aveyron, Caspar Hauser and Wild Peter of Hanover (victims of extreme isolation, though not thought to have been raised by animals), as well as n-umerousstories of children for whom some feral connection had been established with a variety of animal speciesincluding leopards, wolves,bears,sheep,pigs and catde. Of the forty or more case histories rounded up by Zingg, mostly from Europe and Asia and dating from the fourteenth cenfury to the more recent past, a high proportion dealt with wolf children. 'An account of Wolves nurturing Children in their Dens', published in r85z by Colonel William Sleeman,who travelled widely in North India and took an amateurinterestin the subject,provided Zingg with much of his best material. However, the evidence in support of wolf and other animal-reared children, if only due to the remotenessor antiquity of most cases,was far from conclusive. Since the time of Linnaeus the subject had been a focus of controversy, with most scientistsregarding storiesof feral children as the stuffof mlth rather than experience.Dr Zingg's book, although labelledan impartial review, was clearly aimed at removing their doubts and, in presentingThe Diary of the Wolfcltild.renof Midnapue as the first case that fulfilled 'all the primary conditions for an acceptablescientific datum', at raising feral man to the safts of scientffic respectability. When I first read the Reverend Singh's diary I was alreadyawarethat Dt Zingg had failed in his mission. On publication, LTolf-Childrm and,Feral Man had caused a small stir in academic circles: a number of respected authorities had acceptedit as true, others equally respected had not beenconvinced,while still othershad dismissedit as rank nonsense:the controversyhad flared briefly, then burnt itselfout. I was,nonetheless,fascinatedby the diary

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and despiteits evidential limitations I felt certain that it containedsometruth. On the strength of that conviction, without knowing any more about the subject,I decidedto invcstigatethe ReverendSingh's story and his world and try to find out what happened. Although the events describedin the diary took place fifty yearsago, I believedthat I should be able to produce enough evidence to satisry myself and others whether or not a human being had ever beenfosteredby wild animals. There were more recentcases,as I soondiscovered,which might have been easier to investigate: a gazelleboy of the SpanishSahara,allegedlystill running about the desertin 1966, Ramu the wolf boy of Lucknow, monkey children from Teheran and Ceylon,evenPatrick, the chickenchild, whoseparentshad kept him in a hen-housefrom the age of two to seven-and-a-half;but, apart from this last and gruesomely domestic case (from the records of the N.S.P.C.C.), on prima focie evidence they all seemed suspectfor one reasonor another. Last year an ape boy from Burundi with apparently respectable credentials was revealedby an American psychologistto be a fake, his monkey-likefeaturesand mannerismsdiagnosedas the result of mental illness. There were also better documented cases of feral children, in particular the Wild Boy of Aveyron, who in somewayshad amore interestingstorythan the Midnapore wolf children. The accomplishmentsof the boy's teacher and benefactor, Jean-Marc ltard, whose careful observations and skilled experiments on 'Victor' made a small but significant contribution to sensoryeducation and the study of human development, cannot in fairness be compared to the untrained efforts of an Indian missionary. But, for reasonsthat were no doubt more profound than I appreciated,I was captivatedby the idea ofa connection between children and animals, and the question of whether it had ever happened seemedto me as a non-scientist more important than the conclusions which might be

drawn from a similar case in which animals wene not involved. In the beginning it was this optimistic and perhaps naive quest for the tmth that sustainedme along the trail of the wolf children. Although Zingg and Singh were both dead,my investigations beganbravely enough with the assumptionthat the original of the missionary's diary and a collection of papers belonging to theanthropologist must still exist. The search for these documents took me on a wild goosechaseacross middle America from Kentuc[y to El Paso and back. In WashingtonD.C., under the quiet ceilingsof the Library of Congress,I discoveredthat the papers had indeed existed, but had since been lost. During the war a box containing all Dr Zingg's materials on feral children had been sent from Denver to Yale where, on the recommendationof Dr Arnold Gesell (who had himself written a book on the subject), they were to be housed in the medical library. The documents, it seemed, had arived at Yale, but mystetiously disappearedbefore reaching their final destination. In Yale I checked with every library on the campus, but there was no record anywhere of a wolf-children deposition.Somewhatdespondendy,for the more I pursued the missing papers the more significant and graillike they became in my imagination, I went to see Dr Louise Bates Ames, co-director of the Gesell Institute of Child Development, who had assistedthe late Dr Gesell in his work on the wolf children. Since she could do no more tlran confirrn the unfortunate loss of the papers, I resigned myselfto asking rather pointless questions about what the Zingg collection had contained. I was hardly surprised in the middle of this lugubrious interview to notice that Dr Arnes's attention was beginning to wander. Suddenly she rose to her feet. There was a box-room in the roof of the Institute where bits and pieces,mostly old junk, were stored, but just possibly some other materials

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might have reached up there by mistake. It took us a few moments to get from her office to the top of the stairs. Arming ourselves with torches, we pulled down a folding Iadder from the ceiling and climbed up into the attic. Almost at once, in a dark corner under the rafters, I came upon the box. Beneath the layers of dust and grime I could just make out by the circle of torchlight the name of Robert M. Zingg. The Reverend Singh's diary was not among Zingg's papers (only an edited manuscript of the published version), but the box containeda wealth of correspondence, amounting to several hundred letters, about the wolf children of Midnapore. The collection was to form the basis of my investigation; and, although the search had only just begun, it is difficult to seenow, on looking back, what I could have hoped to achievewithout it. Indeed, the successof my researchinto the wolf-children saga ulti. . mately dependedon this one lucky find, My original intention had been to give a complete accountofthe research,to allow the readerto follow every turn of the investigation, to share every break-through, setbackand dead end, but by the time I returned from India the story of detection had grovn so long and complex that I had to abandonthe idea. I decidedinstead ro recreatethe eventsofSingh's extraordinarydiary from all the sourcesat my disposal,but to exercisemy judgement in the choice of material and with no less nespectfor the truth. By this method I hoped to bring more light to bear on the character and background of the Reverend Singh, who soon enough emerged as the key to any understandingof what really happened.It is to his memory that I dedicatethis iourney into one of the strangerand more remote regionsof human experience.

ChapterOne

In a shimmer of heat the Down local from Kharagpur, trailing a pall of black smoke from the efforts of pulling its overloadedcoachesup tlle gradient, slowly swept into the embankmentstraightandcametowardsthe station.The zun glancing off its engine platesseemedto galvanizethe small crowd on the platform, breakingthe spell of lethargy cast over them by the excessiveheat. They began to move all at once, collecting their belongings, rising from their hunkers and pressingforward to the edgeofthe phtforrq mobilized for the anival. The saisfrom the orphanagg still squatting with friends under the platform awning sipping green coconut water, waited until the train was well into the station beforeleavingthe shadefor a strategic position opposite the parcels godown, where the last carriageusually stopped.He stood smiling up indiscriminately at the passing squashof faces that strained from every opening in the iron-red carriages, grimacing as the train squealedto a halt. At the sight of the tall figure in white standingaf the doorway of the First Classcompartment he put his hands together and, making a steepleof his fingers, lowered his head in a particularly elaborate display of reverence,a $eeting which the Bengalis usually reservefor imagesof the divine. Mr Singh acknowledgedhis servanrwith an impatient wave and waited for the roar of the final releaseof steam to die away before stepping down from the train, one hand holding up the skirt of his long summer cassock,the other proffered to a young tribal boy in gamchas,whom he was trJnng to coax down the steps of the neighbouring Third

Classcarriage with an encouraging smile. The boy seerned as much afraid of the missionaryas he was of the train. A giant beside native Bengalis, Mr Singh stood two inchesover six foot and was broad in proportion, confirming the Hindu preiudice that Christians only grow so big and sffong becausethey eat beef. He was dark-skinned,as dark as the jungle boy himself, which combined with a military bearing and the rather fierce set of his features to betray his Raiputani ancestry.As a younger man he had been thought handsome,'a iolly fellow' who sported a twirlable moustacheand dressedto fashion,cutting a dash among his Indian contemporariesat Calcutta University. Now at forty-two, growing heavy about the iowls and proud to wear only the simple habit of his calling, the epithets of his youth were no longer apt. A dignified rnanner,solemnvoice and deep-set,thoughtful eyes- their serious, even stern, expression reinforced by the uncompromisingline of the mouth - told of a complex and embattled character,not without humour or kindnessbut driven with religious certainty, pressedinto the serviceof a foreign God as much by his own inclination and ambition as any accidentofbirth. The salstook over from Mr Singh and without ceremony pulled the boy out of the trainl then, making a quick secondobeisanceto the padre, he turned and led the way along the platform, clearing a path through the throng of passengers,porters, hawkers and gariwallafiswith a rimfire invective that had the desired effect without causing offence to his master. A broken-down dld man rn dhoti and regulation red shirt that hung in tatters from his insufficient shouldersstruggled with the baggage,dragging after him a tin steamer trunk that set up litde dust devils in its wake, which the boy, recoveredfrom the ordeal of the train, idly stamped on vrith his bare feet. The saishad kept the horse and tom-torn waiting in the full sun. Mr Singh reprimandedhim sharplyashe gathered his cassockand swung himself up into the driver's seat.

Even in the hot weather he always preferred to drive hinrself unless the occasion demanded a different sort of digntty. The servant threw a few paise to the porter, then he and the boy squeezedinto the cab alongsidethe baqgage as the horse took the strain and the orphanagerig lurched forward on to the streets of Midnapore. The town'lay on the far side of the railway ffacks. Here the land is quite flat and the buildings so well camouflaged by greenery that even from the vantage point of the embankment there is nothing to be seen beyond the impressive fagadeof St John's Church, an ochre eminence solid against the sea of brilliant vegetation.From the air Midnapore might appear as an emerald caught in the coil of a slow brown snake,for on three sides the river Kasai takes a protective loop about its limits; but its true character only reveals itself on closer inspection. Like so much of British India it wasreadily divisible in two: the western 'the clerkst quarters', with red half, sometimes called brick public institutions and Government officers' bungalows neatly laid out within extensive compounds and protected by avenues of shade-giving trees: and to the south, the town proper with its narrow streets, twisting lanes and uowded bazaarsfull of old crumbling houses, brackish tanhs and ramshackle bustees,where for want of adequate drainage and ventilation cholera was endemic until the pilgrim traffic shifted to the railways at the end of the last century. Yet the teeming squalor in which most of its 3orooo inhabitants lived, then as now, repeating the daily rituals of an existence unchanged since medieval times, doing business with each other or talking politics in the bazaarsover cups of sweet milky tea, had more of Iife to offer than the salubriousand sedateenclaveoftheir European administr"ators. A place of consequence,as its name 'the city of the world' suggests,Midnapore had always been the administrative centre of the district - a high proportion of

lawyers,clerks, teachersand educatedbabuscontributing to an unusual degreeof sophisticationand political awareness among its people. In earlier times 'administration' had a distinctly miliary flavour and the names of town quarters,like Colonelgolaand Sepoy Bazaar,as much as the massive ruin of an old Mog.ul fort that occupies the centre of the town, bear witness to its unsettled history. Midnapore, being a border district and commanding the main road to Orissa,wasconstantlydisputedby successive dynasties from the ancient Mauryans to the wild and bloodthirsty Marathas. Among the oldest settled districts of British India - finally securedfor the East India Company by the middle of the eighteenthcentury after a prolonged struggle - it seemed to Robert Reid, a young district officer posted there that sameyear of r9r5, to be 'full of ghosts'. In the green and spaciouswestern half of the town, 'the station', as the British liked to refer to what they once regarded as no more than temporary encampments, though everywherein India they built massivelyand with a view to permanence,Mr Reid occupied a huge white barcackof a bungalow, said to have been used by Warren Hastingsasa country residence,now infestedwith termites and snakes.At the bottom ofhis compound, guarded by the decayingtomb ofan Indian athletesaint,an old racquet court (often a feature of British occupation before lawn tennis became fashionable) and a disused racetrack choked by lantana bushes, reverberatedthe echoesof a more leisurely and distinguished past. In the infantry lines the officerst quarters of a regiment that once fought insurgent tribes on the Orissaborder had been taken over by American Baptists; but between the orderly rows of huts, there still stood the rusted 'bells-olarms' from the days of the Mutiny - relics that must have seemed haunted enough to a Government contingent, reduced now to a handful of men who rattled about the station in ro a slightly unconvincing manner.

The 'native'town waslesstroubled by ghosts,for there decay and gxowh kept each other in check, while its own not uninteresting history was constantly assimilatedand submergedin the daily strugBlefor existence.Since r9o5, Midnapore had been at the centre of sustainedresistance to the partition of Bengal, which at Lord Curzon's insistence had divided a province and people united since earliest times, apparently for the sake of administrative convenience.A political blunder that would haverepercussionsdown the forty yearsthat remainedto the Raj, it had the immediateeffect of precipitating Indian nationalismin Bengal to the revolutionary phase. In Midnapore there had been an unsuccessfulattempt in December rgo7 to blow up L tain carrying the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal at Narayangarh. Three months later and two hundred miles away in Mozufferpore, a bomb of identical design, intended for the District Judge, had killed the wife and daughter of Mr Pringle Kennedy, the leader of the local bar. The ladieshad been returning from a bridge eveningat the club in a carriage similar to the Judge's, when two men ran up out of the shadows,one with a silver object' held high above his head which he threw into the open victoria. The bomb struck Miss Kennedy on the side, blowing her backwards against her mother and leaving what remained of both women's bodieshanging from the shatteredrear portion of the carriage,hair trailing in the dust as the frightened horse dragged the wrecked conveyancedown the road. Lurid press descriptions of how the innocent women died fuelled the senseof outragethat swept India; though at Simla, an editorial in the Statesmrr hastened to re assureits readers,discussionof the bomb attackwas characteristically phlegmatic: 'It is not the British way to raise eyes and hands to heaven, or to waste much time in uselessthough pertinent interjection.'l In Midnapore the reaction could hardly be so contained,-forthe perpetrator

of the outrage,arresteda few days afterwards,furned out to be one of her own sons, a young nationalist called Khudiram Bose.At the sametime investigationsinto the Narayangarh train-wrecking attempt had revealed the existenceof a revolutionary cell in Midnapore, which was planning to assassinate the District Magistrate and every other Europeanin the district. The police had acted swiftly: On 3 Septemberr9o8 the town was thrown into panic by the arrest of more than r5o people, among them severalprostitutes and two Rajahs, on suspicion of conspiracy.There was protest from nationalist quarters, but a meeting at the Bayley Hall in Midnapore to pledge loyalty to the Goyernment and express outrage at recent terrorist activity was attended by five hundred of the local gentry - among them Mr Singh, at that time Headmasterof the local Mission High School - who sang the National Anthem and moved a number ofconfident and loyal resolutionsto protect their town, and'indeedBengaland the Empire, from the brutal crimes of the revolutionary movement. History, past and fufure, would find their confidence, if not their loyalty, misplaced. Ever since Macaulay had publicly slanderedthe Beng:alisby calling tlem a race of cowards and the Government had subsequentlyexcluded this cleverestand most passionateof Indian people from the army on the grounds that they were not sufficiendy tough or war-like, they had taken deep and lasting offence. Partition had added iniury to inzult. Somesaid it was done deliberately,that Lord Curzon had seen trouble coming and was out to crush the Bengalis first; but in any event he succeeded only in strengthening the resolve of the revolutionaries and their supporters against the British. Midnapore would remain in the front line of their sometimes overt but mostly surreptitious war. The village of Tantigoria" where the Singhs had moved on their return from Calcutta iust before the outbreak of

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the Great War, lay outside the municipal limits to the north-west of Midnapore, a mean cluster of huts backing on to scrub jungle, barely half a mile from the railway station. Their house stood well apart from the rest of the village on the right hand side of the road that leads to Gope, set back in a.large tree-filled garden, hidden from view by a brushwoodfence and a handsomepair of gates. A wooden plaque advertisedthe house, which could be seengleamingwhitely through the ffees, as'The Home'. Singh had chosenthe name becauseit seemedparticularly suitable for a mission-houseand orphanage combined, and whenever he stopped there in front of the gates,as now, waiting for the mali,hopefully alerted by the barking of the dogs,to come and open them, he felt a certain pride in its simple appeal.He was proud, too, of the association with that great missionary institution, The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which had sent him here as a Deacon of the Anglican Church with a licence in his pocket sealed and signed by the Metropolitan of India 'to preach and extend the word of God as a Missionary'. The document, dated r8 January r9r3, hung now above the desk in his office and he knew its solemnwording by heart. Although he recognizedand often repeatedthat his work here'in the Lord's Vineyard' had hardly begun,in four shoft yearshe had built up 'The Home' from a half-ruined farmhouse on the edge of the Narajole estate to an establishment worthy of the good name he had given it. Taking the ton-tom between tl, e gates and up the drive at a fast trot, he swept round the circle of grasslesslawn in front of the house and pulled up opposite the portico under the shade of a magnificent iack-fruit tree which dominated the compound. He climbed down and stood there for a moment enjoyng respite from the sun while the sais took the reins and began to lead the horse away to the stable.The boy remained by his side looking about in furtive wonder.

The Reverend Singh's eye was more critical. The orphanage buildings, consisting at present of his own house, a square stone bungalow lime-washed white with green louvred shutters, and two wings of thatched huts built on behind for the children, forming an agreeable courtyard, which served temporarily as an open air school, playground and kitchen, still fell short of his ambitious plans.The front of the house, owing to lack of funds, had not yet been completed; both the portico and the prayer room beyond, which led on to the drawing room, were open to the sun and rainl but the need for improvement to the Singhs' own quarters could not be regardedas a priority. From the far end ofthe compound the impression was of an imposing and comfortable residence. It was pleasantto be in the garden.Mrs Singh, waiting in the shade of a pillar on the front steps, came over to meet them under the tree carrying a glassof water for her husband. They greeted each other with customary reserye. Introducing the boy, Jageswar, to his new 'mother', the Reverend Singh explainedto her in Bengali that he was a Santal, the son of Bhagobat Khatua of Salgaria.He was twelve years old and had come to live with them at the orphanagefor a few yearsbecauseit was his father's wish that he should receive the benefits of schoolingand upbringing in truly Christian surroundings. Although she could not speak Santali, Mrs Singh, who knew Bhagobat,her husband'smost valued Readerin the south of the district and stalwart of his mission to the Santals,from his occasionalvisits to Midnapore, received the boy warrrly and, urging her husband to go and ake test, led him away to the back of the houseto meet the other children. Although tired from the journey - it had taken them four days by bullock cart from Salgaria to Kharagpur Singh ignored his wife's advice and after washing off the dust of kutcha ruads, setded down at his desk to write a

15

long overdue report to the District Board of Missions. He had to have it ready by the morning as tomorroril they were expecting a visit from the Bishop of Calcutta, the Right Reverend George Lefroy. The visit, itself a rare and prestigiousevent, on this occasionwas something more: Mr Singh believed his future and that of the orphanage dependedon it. He knew that his work had met with the approval of both the Diocesan Council and the S.P.G. and that they were pleased with what he had achieved at the orphanager.buthe needed more than their praise and encouragement- he neededthe assurancethat his work would be allowed to continue. He wanted them to recognize that the orphanage was not merely a charitable institution, but an effective way of spreadingthe Word, that those who had been brought up in the Christian atmosphereof 'The Home' would one day go back to the iungles and convert their heathen brothers. Some of the boys and girls in his care, like the newly arrived Jageswar Khatua, were not orphans at all, but had families who either could not afford to feed them or wanted them schooled.He took in widows and destitutes and child prostitutes; but most of the children, as he put it in his report, were'picked up from the streetsin Santaliaand Kharagpur and taught the priceless Love of Our Lord from their infancy'.2 These reports never varied much, giving pride of placq after the obligatory parish news, to the orphanagel detailing the number of children (which stood usually in the low twenties), listing the names of the Managing Committee, praising the good work of the teachers and generosity of 'the sympathetic Church members, both European and Indian, in the Station, who have been the chief supporters of the institution'.3 He always rounded off with a somewhatnaive vote of thanks to Mrs Singh, 'the Honorary Lady Superintendent'ashe dubbed her, 'who is the life and soul of this establishmentand has nobly given up her home and compound to the orphans'{

- as if he himself had had nothing to do with it. And ttlen came the inevitable request for more money. The orphanage was permanently in financial distress. Because it lacked various facilities, it was not recognized by the education department. It failed, therefore, to receive substantial grants from the District Board and the Municipality, which meant that the money collected from charity, the S.P.G. and the C.hurch was spent in running the orphanageinstead ofbeing set aside to make the necessary improvements to qualify for Government aid. What Singh hoped for from his Bishop was the promise of a large enough sum to buy the parcel ofland, for which he had been negotiating with the Rajah of Narajole for several months now, so that he could establishthe orphanagein its own buildings. As it happened,Singh's work had recently receivedsome favourablepublicity: a visiting missionaryhad published his impressionsof 'The Home' in the diocesanmagazine, painting an idealized picture of the Indian Christian institution at work,s The article did not mention the financial diffculties of the orphanage,but in stressing,the importance of such institutions it expressedconcern that they should be allowed to founder. The appeal would undoubtedly strengthenMr Singh's hand. And there were otherswho had visited the orphanageduring the last year, offered advice and encouragement and talked enthusiastically of Singh's achievementon their return to Calcutta. He had made every effo'rt to earn their praise, conscious after four years in the Diaconate that he was due for advancementto the priesthood, and that the Bishop's support for the orphanagewould depend to a large extent on whether or not he thought him ready for ordination. Although priests were always in short supply in India and native recruits usually welcomed witl open arms, bectuse the accusationwas often levelled that Indians only turned to Christianity for what they could get out of it in the way of iobs and improved social status, grester care was taken

r

7

in selectingand sorting candidaresthan might otherwise have beenthe case. Joseph Singh's credentials,before he ever showed any interest in becoming a priest, were held to be above reproach. His ancestorscame from Bundelkhand in Rajputan and belonged to the Kshatriya or warrior caste. Traditionally they had alwaysservedin the military until his grandfather,JosephHiralal Singh, at the time also a soldier, had fled from the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 and settled in Bengal. He was the first Christian convert in the family and in later life becamea priest and a missionary, devoting his considerableenergy and a substantial part ofhis inheritance to founding and running the Local Mission High Schooland,sening a precedentfor his grandson, opening a small orphanage in Midnapore. One of Hiralal's sons, Luther, followed him into the clergy, but Joseph's father, Timothy Singh, entered Government serviceas a clerk, Iater becoming Sheristadan(inspector) of the Moonsiff's Court in Bankura. Joseph, the eldest offive children, was brought up there and educatedat the Wesleyan Mission School. He did well at his studies, developinga talent for oratory and languages,and in 1893 becamethe first memberof the family to passthe entrance examination for Calcutta University, entitling him by the terms of his grandfather'swill, who died that sameyear, to a large zum of money to be spent on further education in England. But much to his family's dismay, Joseph, who had fallen in love with a police inspector's beautiful daughterfrom Murshidabad and wantedto marry her (love matches were not the convention even among Christian Indians), rejected the offer on the pious grounds that, if he accepted,he would be depriving his poorer relations of the money which would otherwise be distributed among them. After six years of study at Bishop's C.ollege, still accredited in those days to Calcutta University, Joseph Singh received a Faculty of futs Diploma at the second

attempt and was awarded a gold medal for coming first in English recitation,though he failed to get his B'4. While still at college he had married Rachel Mninmoye Singh against his parents' wishes and with only the grudging consent of his parents-in-law, who disapproved of the match becausehe was dark-skinned. On graduating he found that they could not return home since his mother, a formidable wolnan, from whom he had inherited a violent temper, would not allow Rachel in the house. The young couple moved to H*zaribagh, where Singh taught mathematics at the Dublin University Mission School for two years and then returned to Calcutta and another teaching post, which qualified him for the Headmastership, recently fallen vacant, of the Local Mission High School in Midnapore, founded by his grandfather. In spite of his rejecting the Reverend Hiralal's generousbequest, Singh had always admired his grandfather and was delighted to follow the path he had trod. He accepted the appointment and, with his wife and three children, came to Midnapore in the summer of r9o6. He took his new job seriously, working hard to raise the academicstandardsofthe schooland never failing what he consideredhis first duty as a Christian preceptor. Dr Kshitish Sarbadhicari,whose father becamethe Singh's family physician, remembers him as a kind and useful teacher, something of a disciplinarian, yet popular with the children becausehe made jokes and in May always distributed the fruit from the school'smango treesamong them. But when it cameto religion he found him distinctly (Every day before schoolwe used to gather over-zealous: in the Hall and he would stand solemnly in front of us with his hands together - the palms turned up, one overlaying the other * forming a circle below the waist; the children, most of whom were non-Christian, would all have to do the same while we prayed for at least five minutes - that can be a long time for a small child. Every

I

day we did this.'6Out of school,the headmasteralso found time to help the local padre as catechist,teaching the life of Christ, preparing converts for baptism, visiting Indian Christian families, and every Sunday travelling over to Kharagpur to conduct a servicein Hindi for the railway's migrant workers who did not know Bengali. There was no doubt that Singh had a natural propensityfor this kind of work and the issue arose whether he might not beffer serve his God from within the Church rather than as a lay teacher. The question was ultimately resolved in rgro by the sudden closure due to financial difficulties of the Mission school in Midnapore. An invitation arrived from the Bishop of Calcutta for Singh to study theologyat Bishop's Collegefor the Diaconate.At the sametime he was offered another Headmastershipby the Education Department; but he had no difficulty in making up his mind in favour of the Church. He would write later of having received 'the Ca11',of persistentdreamswherein mysteriousfigures 'a big yawning in shining white robes led him across 'the Altar'. And grave' and brought him faceto facewith no doubt he did have a vocation, though there were other considerationstoo. During his four years as a teacher at Midnapore one event in particular may have decided the course of his career. Certainly it is given momentous significance in Singh's own accounts of his life, where he tells in loving detail how by application of Chlorodyne and prayer he had once cured a young tribal boy attending his school of cholera.The boy's relativesand friends were so impressed 'mantras' that they by his teacher's magical Christian came to him to learn more about the power of the 'Great Healer'. By the end of the year Mr Singh could take credit for some forty Santal baptisms. After being escorted by his new friends on a three-week tour of their villages in the jungle he was able to claim even more. On that trip, enioying the extraordinary beauties

and freedom of lungle life, he discovered his missiortary vocation: We felt that it was a direct call from the Lord Jezus, and firlly believed that the Lord had actually called us to these people, His disciples to unfold the Gospel to them while they wete so eager to accept the Maser , . , it was clear tley did believe in the prayers and supplications to Our Lord Jesus and were willing to accept Him as their Lord in place of their Gods and Goddessescalled'Bongas'. In all this we found the reverse principle of EvangelisrnThe Missionaries and the Preachers generally go to the people to preach unto them the Gospel of Our Lord. But here the principle is different. The people themselvescame to seekthe Lord and found Him.7

As soon as he had finished his report to the Distria Board of Missions tlle padre began to clean and oil the two guns he alwaystook with him on his trips to the iungle, calling through to his wife to prepare tea for the arrival of his first visitors, the Brothers of the Poor, a charitablesociety which he had started in Midnapore to succour the lepers, cholera victims, prostitutes and untouchablesof the town, whom no one else would help. A group ofyoung volunteersmet regularly under Reverend Singh's presidency at 'The Home' to discussand plan their work. Because they had no religious or political affiliation, their work was recognizedby all and did much for Singh's reputation among the people of Midnapore. It would be false to suggestthat he deliberatd cultivated the esteem in which he was beginning to be held for selfish reasons,but he believed his position as head of a Christian community that numbered only r5o Bengalis and a handful ofEuropeans in a town of 3o,ooopagaffL required him to set an example that could be seen by Hindu and Moslem alike as the embodiment of Christian faith and morality in action. This sometimesmeant, as in the case of the Brothers of the Poor, suppressingthe Christian interest in favour of his own, but for political

rather than for personal reasons, since Christianity was regardedby many Indians asthe religion ofthe conquering race, an extension of the power of the Raj, and derided as such. The Reverend Singh could not hope to avoid censure altogether. In many ways he did not want to, for in political terms he saw Christianity and British rule in India as supporting and iusti$'ing each other, and if he did not always distinguish too carefully betwern his loyalty to the Raj and his duty to the Church, it was becausehe loved both with equal passion. Standingon a chair, he placedthe guns on a shelfabove his desk out of reach of the orphanagechildren and his own son, Daniel, who was almost fwelve years old now and at boarding school in Hazaribagh.He had forbidden him to touch them on pain of chastisement,although he knew there was little dangerof his doing so, for somewhat to his father's disappointment the boy showed little interestin fire-armsor hunting. They shareda fondnessfor animals, but that was spoiled by Singh's greter love of shikar. Apart from the excellent opportunities for sport affordedby his long missionarytours in the iungle he often used to shoot with friends nearer home. There were shikar patties organized by the Rajahs of Narajole and Jhagram, informal expeditions with the British officials and the simplepleasureof going out with a gun behind the house and walking up snipe, hare and other small game for the pot. But he took c?renot to becometoo well known as a hunter. Although he could easily be persuadedto tell the story ofhow he got his'stripes', as the Bengaltiger was affectionatelyknown, he kept few trophies other than some rather poor specimensof chital and black buck, which gathered dust high on the walls of his office. There was nothing in the drawing room which might have offended visiting parishioners or ecclesiastics.Not that most missionariesdid not hunt, and were even obliged to on occasion, but he had to think of the devout Hindu who was opposedto the killing of any animal and of his

missionary superiors who might accuse him of spending too much time with a gun under his arm in lieu of a bible. The European community, however, understood his predicament and sympathized, for now that pigsticking and polo were beyond the purse of most district officers, hunting was theh chief outdoor recreation and if an Indian could share the pleasuresof this manly pursuig the enlightened among them welcomed the chance of fraternization on tlre safesocial ground of jungle andjheel. For ReverendSingh there were other points ofcontact with the British that he prized more highly, not the least being his university education and command of the English language, which allowed him to tender with pleasureand a certain pride his servicesas interpreter to the District Judge and the Collector in difficult or important cases.But it wasthrough the Church that he camemost into contact with the tTwice Bornt and was able in some casesto establish relationships that he believed transcended the racial barrier in a way that would have been impossiblefor a Hindu or Moslem. Probably his finding favour with the British had as much to do with the fact that he camefrom Rajputanand belongedto the Kshatriya warrior caste,which in their eyesmade him 'a man', as acceptableas the loyal, honest Pathan or Puniabi and raisedhim abovethe level of the Bengalibabus,whomthey regardedasshiftless,untrustworthy, effeminateand always 'too clever by half'. Over the years to come Reverend Singh would pay court to each successiveDistrict Magistrate, a policy exercised as a matter of course by all the leading loyalist citizens of Midnapore, but in his casenot so much becausehe needed their cooperation in his work but becausehe believedthat his education,socialstanding, his very 'Britishness' entitled him to their company. In reality his successwould depend largely on the devoutness of the individual magistrateand the interest he showedin Church matters, but pride would never allow Reverend Singh to admit that he occupied any but a specialplace

22

in the heart of his British masters. There were a few, of cours€, who within the limits of propriety accepted and returned his friendship, not merely for professional expediency, but because they liked him and respected him. In spite of his short temper and schoolmaster's pompous manner they saw Singh as a reliable man of some charm and sophistication, who held strong, oversimple and rather rigid convictions, but lived more or less according to the principles on which they were founded; and if his attempts to be more British than the British were a little galling at times, it was a common enough fault among educated Indians, and he made up for it with a sense of humour more highly developed than mosg whose comic disposition had been nurftred by a climate in which irony would not grow. In Kharagpur, where he and the bon Jageswar, had qpent last night on their return from Salgaria, Reverend Singh had attended t cafechantantat theRailway Institute. The evening had been organized by his supervisor,the Reverend G. Reynold Walters, in aid of Church Funds, but Singh may havehad an ulterior reasonfor being there. Godfrey Walters had taken over the chaplaincy at Kharagpur nearly five yearsago and was talking ofretiring, though he had threatened to leave so often during his residence that nobody really knew whether to believe him or not. In those early days Kharagpur, a growing railway town eight miles south of Midnapore, was an onerous and unhealthy parish. Walters' wife had died in the first year they were there. At the time he had been too ill himself with malaria and dysentery to rcalize what was happening. When he returned to consciousnessafter a long bout of fever, he had met his loss with the fortitude expected of a man in his position. But gradually lonelinesshad eroded his strength and as it becameclear to him that he needed a replacement for his wife and had litde chanceof finding one in Kharagpur, he grew morose and bitter. He became

prons to eccentric outbursts, and would sometimes c-rll out in the middle of Evensong'Soul of my souM shall clasp thee again', whereupon his congregation would look away or clear their throats in sympathy. They knew well enough what he had zuffered,but the cemeteriesof Bengal were full of young Englishwomen who had survived the rigorous passageout, only to succumb to the deadly climate soon after arrival. After his wife's death, Walters went into a decline. A difficult rnan to work with, always finding fault and complaining to his superiors in Calcutta, he had become obsessedby the quality of his living arrangements and would dash offletters to the fuchdeacon,scribbled on the backsof First Communion cards,scoredby heavyunderlinings, pointing out the inadequaciesof his bungalow, which he claimed was unworthy of him. In fact the bungalow was large and comfortable, but Walters' obsessionswere revenantsthat could not be laid. That night at the concert he had complainedabout it to Singh, who had heard his colleague'sviews on the subject many times before, but knowing that he might need Walters' recommendationto the Bishop, listened patiently, hoping it was for the last time. Although in his reports over the years Singh had expressed nothing but the warmest gratitude for tlte ce operation and help shown by Walters, the two men did not get on. When Singh was ordained Deacon at Advent r9rz, placed on the list of S.P.G. Clergy and sent to Midnapore, a new district had been addedto the Diocese of C,alcutta" but because he was only a Deacon and a 'native' clergyman, he had to remain for the time being under the wing of the European Chaplain at Kharagpur. The Midnapore Church Committee, however, were opposedto the idea of throwing in their lot with Kharagpur becausethey 'were frightened of being swamped by so large rplace'8, as they put it, though it later emergedthat tlre real reason for their desire to remain independent

24

of Kharagpur had more to do with their low opinion of the wretched and slighdy mad Reverend Godfrey Walters. When Walters happened to discover what the Church C,ommittee thought of hirn, after seeing a letter they had written to the Bishop, he refused to have anything more to do with Midnapore and for a long time associatedSingh with his persecutors. Not that Walters' voice was likely to be decisive on Singh's candidature for the priesthood. He was after all not a missionary but a railway chaplain and the future of the Church in India barely concerned him, whereas on Joseph Singh it rested. Unlike the Government chaplains who had been sent out to care only for the souls of the white-skinnedpopulation (sometimesrefusing to minister to non-Europeans), the Missionary Societies looked ahead to a self-supporting, self-governing Indian Church with Indian Clergy under Indian Bishops as the end airn of the work that they sustained. The Metropolian of India had the difficult task of reconciling both often opposed camps. In that sense Singh's being sent to Midnapore and put in charge of a large new district was a political appointmentand his advancementto the pristhood, although he did not know it, was only a questionof timing. As it turned out it would coincide with \nalters' retirement. 'I remained a Deacon till the yar rgrTr' Singh wrote some years later in a letter to America, 'and the Metru politan, Bishop Lefroy, visited us and was very much pleasedto see the Orphanageand our parish work. He carried a very healthy impression of our endeavour and spokevery highly in the D.B.M. Committee and advised them to strengthenour hands. It was done and the Reverend Gee, the then Secretary,visited us and sympathized with us in various ways and granted us all we wanted. Dr Lefroy had made it implicit on me that I should be ordained a priest .. .'e At the beginning of the rains, a

month or so after the Bishop's visit, a telegram arrived from Father Drnest Brown, the Superior of the Oxford Mission, inviting I. A.L.Singh to come to C,alcuttaand be preparedby him for ordination. Although he had been awaiting a summons, it was a special and unexpectedhonour, for Father Brown was one of the most distinguishedand reveredmissionariesof the day. Having founded the Bishop's College School in Calcutta and reorganized the S.P.G. Mission to the Sunderbans,the vast tiger-infested delta area above the Bay of Bengal, he had practical experienceand understandingof the sort of work in which ReverendSingh was engaged at Midnapore. A man of intellectual vigour, kindliness of heart and simple piety, he was well known and loved about Calcutta,wherehe cut a somewhatbizarre figure becauseofhis enormoussize and eccentrichabit of pedalling through the meanestdistricts of the city, loudly singing and whistling as he disbursedold Christmas cards from a basketattachedto the handlebarsofhis bicycle to bewildered urchins, who soon learnt to cheer and chase the gigantic'PadreSahib'through the streetsin the hope of making him fall off. The Reverend Singh stayed with him at the Oxford Mission on the outskirts of Calcutta from r August till the end of December, making monthly visits to Midnapore to see his family and minister to his parishioners, but otherwise living in retreat among the Oxford Brethren, devoting his time to prayer and study. Father Brown, whose lectures he had attended as a student at Bishops' Collegebefore the war, becamehis teacher, his spiritual counsellor, and moreover a friend, who would turn out to be a useful ally in the difficult times that lay ahead. (letters At the end of the year he witnessedhis pupil's testimonial' to the Bishop, proclaiming him in all conscience'to be, as to his moral conduct, a person worthy '.10 to be admitted to the sacredofrce of priest At 8.3oa.m. on z3 December, a bright cold-weather morning, in St

z6

Mary's Church, Calcutta, Joseph Amrito Lal Singh' dressedfor the last time in Deacon'scassock,surplice of his family,friendsand and stole,beforea congregation thoseclergy of the Diocesewho would take part in ttte Laying-on-of-Hands,wasordainedto the priesthood.

ChapterTwo

The land of the Reverend Singh's missionary forays against the heathen lay to the west and south of Midnapore,a natural border country where the alluvial plains of Bengal meet the rolling wavesof laterite rock that push down from the highlands of central India to the coast, creating a more broken and picturesque scenery. The fertile black earth of flat, neatly cultivated rice swamps givesway to red murrum and laterite outcropscoveredby scrub iungle and, towards the frontiers of the province, by great tracts of sal forest. The undulating countryside appearsalmost park-like, with stately, well-spacedtrees, areasof densegrass,bambooor canebrakesand pleasantly unexpected views; but the land is barren and poor, ftaversed by fast-flowing rivers and water courses, some deeply erodedwith steepbanks,others spreadout in wide expansesof sand and shingle, which flood rapidly but as soon fall away and go to nothing in the dry season.The moment it rains, everywhereluxuriant $owth burgeons forth, yet the soil is nevercloselyclothed, the grassesand vegetation remain rampant and sparse and, underneath, the red skin ofearth can still be seen.The nakedgauntness of the land, cornmon to much of India where the gende contours of more intimate landscape are hardly known" gives it a dramatic beauty, primordial and harsh. In zummer a hot wind blows steadily from the south. The bare soil of the khas dries hard as the undergrowth withers away, leaving often stunted trees starkly revealed. It is as if the jungle had been devastatedby fue - the brilliant scentlessblossomsof flowering shrubs and bright

'

4

wing flashes of silent birds, residual flames flickering in tle autumn heat.An arid, inhospitableland, it is nonetholess denselypopulated; villages,hidden disueetly behind greenclumps of bamboo,guarding their wretchedclusters of paddy-fields, emerge frequently from the pervasive scrub; but as the scenerychangesand the sal forest begins to predomirute, signs of human habitation become 'The further on€ goes from the town,' increasinglyrare. the Reverend Singh wrote,'he finds the scafteredJungle becoming thicker and thicker. About forty miles off, this Jungle becomesvery denseand gloomy. Here and there only footpaths are visible to go into the Jungle, and cart ruts are seldom found. A few miles beyond, no footpath or cart rut can be seen.The vast areaof this denseiungle is impenetrable,the big sal trees being heavily entwined with thick creepers of enormous size spreading over the trees a beautiful canopy of chequered foliage . . .'1 The shade of a sal forest appearsalmost continuous. fu the speciesis gregariousand thicketsofits saplingsgrow extremely close together, other varieties are mostly ercluded, which imposes a remarkable uniformity and architectural beauty on the formation of the forest. The sal itself, a magnificent tree, tall and straight with a pale smooth bark, soars up branchless to its head, which spreads out into a shock of refreshingly green leaves, something like those of a Spanish chestnut. Much in demand as timber, the old sal forests have mostly been cleared now, but in the Reverend Singh's day, although felling had already been going on for a considerable time and the Santals had cleared large areas for cultivation, substantial tracts vere still standing in primary splendour. Like most peoplewho travel through them the padre was not able to resist their fascination. In an account of his early missiop ary voyages,he wrote lyrically: The sceneryis so beautiful and enchantingthat it is difficult to describe.In the forestthe sun could not be seen. . . only a ray of sunshine . . . here and there during mid-day, pepiry

tlrough the treeq bathingits focus with a goldenhue glorious and superb.In the openyou could seeat times a packofdeer graring on the luxurious gtass,but as soon as they cameto know that we wereapproaching,they sprangup in a body and vanished,leaving only the dust in a smokyform coveringthe whole place.It wasa glorioussilenceinsidethe Jungleand the serenecalm pervadedthe whole area bespeakingthe Divine presencein the wood. On a cloudy day you could see the beautiful Peacocksdancingon the trees and on the creepers forming like swingsfrom one tree to another.It wasa pleasant scenery,and I daresayit is only in the lot ofthe Sikariesto see and realizesuchbeautyin tlre Jungle.z In many respects Singh's early missionary tours had as much to do with hunting as they did with evangelizing, for not only was he a keen sportsman himself' but his Santal guides, often thirty or forty strong, accompanied him, as well he realized,'for the love of wild game'. He excusedthem on the grounds that they had to eat and that skins and trophies were a useful way of supplementing 'This was a grand oppornrnity provided by tleir income. the Lord Himself,'3 he declared staunchly, mindful no doubt of his readership in the diocesanmagazine.On tour he always carried with him two guns and a good supply of cartridges,but on long expeditionsammunition sometimesran short and he would have to resort! not without pleasure,to the weaponsof his companions,which usually included an arsenalof bows, knives, battle-axes, flintlocks, spears,horns and hunting drums. Where the Santalswent on foot the padre, who was a sffong walker, alwaysaccompaniedthem, while his servantsfollowed with the bullock carts. They travelled mostly by night when the animals gave a better performance and there was no need to make stops for feeding. An empty kerosene can fixed under eachcart and a stick tied to one of the wheelsserved asa primitive ratchet that made a noise as they went along to avoid any unexpected encounters with leopard, bear or tiger, all of which preferred to walk by night along roads

and cart tracks to spare their pads the roughness of the iungle floor. The men carried long torches made of bamboo poles with a wick of rags stuffed down one end and soakedin oil for the samereason,and if the parry had to spend the night inside the forest they would always sleep within a circle of protective fires. As well as the tools of his trade - bible, leaflets, religious pictures, magic lantern slides - the Reverend Singh carried with him the usual accoutrements of camp life, from galvanized tub and canvaschagalsfor carrying water to the obligatory medicine chest containing quinine and Epsom salts for malaria, and in caseof snakebite permanganate of potash. But the practical advantagesof keepingequipment light were reinforced by the necessity, due to the exffeme shynessof the more remote tribal peoplewith whom Singh was attempting to make contacg of avoiding giving the impression of an invasion. On his earlier voyageshe discoveredthat the aboriginals often ran away and hid in the jungle when they heard he was coming. fusured by his Santal guides that it was his missionary canonicals and,sola topi which frigiltened them, he took instead to wearing a simple gamcltaor loincloth: 'We had to give up our costume, changing it into their mode of dressingand making ourselvesjust like them in appearance.This went on for several years till they got accustomedto us, and understoodus to be their friends.'a It was a slow process and a hard, even dangerous life that at times might have seemed unrewarding had not Singh's true missionary zeal and enterprise been compounded by his great love of the iungle, which the more he learnt of its ways and its inhabitants grew accordingly. It wasa common enough syndrome, sharedby any number of British District Officerswho were devotedto their iobs for the days they could hope to spend under canvas,and who, when they talked of loving India, really meant her forests and her iungles. But their work did not suffer on account - in fact, rather the opposite - and neither did the

Reverend Singh's, whose impressive though probably exaggeratedbag of 7oo Santal converts testifies that he did more with his time in the iungle than shoot tigers. The Santals were by no means the only tribe or scheduled caste to receive the benefit of his missionary intern tions, but theirs was the strongest, most pervasive culture in that part of the district and at the same time the most receptive to Christianity; besides which Singh admired them as a simple, carefree and independent people, with whom he imagined rather wistfully that he enioyed a special affinity. His attitude towards them was nonetheless paternalistic, approving the Sanal character for being honest,open, gentle and brave, while deploring its childlike hedonism and enslavement to superstition. He had no doubts abouf the fitness of his cure, no compunction in supplanting the Santal story of Genesiswith his own, in forbidding their favourite pastime of getting drunk on rice beer, when they would sing and dtnce all night, in banning recitalsof their erotic love poems;nor indecd did he have any understanding that by impugning their Gods and institutions he was undermining the whole structul€ oftheir societyl yet he was not abovelearning from them and always showed interest in the customs he was so earnesdy and righteously engagedin destroying. Through them he discovered many secrets of the forestl and for knowledge of how to call up red jungle fowl by handclapping or take advantageof a sloth-bear's partiality to the intoxicating fruit of the mohua tree, or mark the passageof time by the withering of a sal leaf - the Reverend Singh became a better shikari and perhaps too a more effective missionary, for the Santals, as much impressedby the padre'sphysicalappearance, by his fearlessness and stamina and strength as any offer of salvation, appreciatedhis unfeigned interestin things they knew and loved. The early missionary tours were voyages without destination. Guided by his companions, the Reverend

33

Singh wanderedthrough the forest moving on from village to village, here and there preaching the gospelin Santali" but always concentrating on preparing the ground for return visits. Whenever possible he persuadeda handful of men from eachvillage to accompanythem a short while for the sakeof hunting, and then allowed them to return home where hopefully they would spread the Word or at least create interest among their friends and relations. It was hardly an agg:essivecampaign and as a result hostility was rarely encountered.Once shynesshad been overcome the band of Christians was everywhere received with the hospitality for which the Santalsare famous. Embarrassed sometimesby the effirsion of their welcome, and especially by the ancient Santal custom of washing the feet of any stranger who crossedthe village boundaries, the padre soon got used to what he interpreted as a potentially Christian mark of respect and humility. Whenever the Santal women approachedhim with brass pitchers balancedgracefullyon their hips, their white sarisnot unlike the robes of neophytes and their raven black hair tied behind in a thick knot, decoratedwith flowers and a twist of red silk, he would return the compliment by giving them his blessing. Santal villages, although they vary in size, consist of identically built adobe and thatch housesarranged to a more or less fixed pattern along a single wide and neadykept 'street'. Consequently the Reverend Singh had difficulty in distinguishing between them and, since one part of the great sal forest was very much like another, he often had only a hazy idea of where his travels were taking him. There was no clearly delineated border inside the forest between Bengal and Orissa and sometimes he crossedover, inadvertendy at fust, into the neighbouring feudatory state of Mayurbhani, which lay beyond the bounds and jurisdiction of his parish; but, knowing that apart from rival missionaries no one would really obiect if he were to extend his mission field to include Santal

t

villages on both sides of the border - he could always plead disorientation- the padre soon took to working in Mal"urbhanj on a deliberateand regular basis.One of the villages he visited there, a remote hamlet called Denganalia, which lies on the edge of denseforest due south of Salgaria and the Bengal border some four miles into Mayurbhanj, although in no way different to other small villagesin the neighbourhood,was yet to play a significant part in the extraordinary saga with which the Reverend Singh was about to become closely involved. In Denganalia the Santals gave the following accounts of what happenedin the forest not far from the village one bright moonlit night in late November - the year was r9r4, or thereabouts.Whether the ReverendSingh visited Denganalia between r9r4 and r9zo, and whether he heard this story from the Santalsthen or at any other time is not on record, but there can be little doubt that the Santals' story is directly connected with the events that would take place a few yearslater in the samepart ofthe forest and which would change the missionary's life. fu it rosebeyond the tops ofthe sal, throwing irregular plumes of black and silver crestedleavesinto relief against the sky, the moon reacheddown whereit could find breaks in tlle canopyto the floor of tlle forest. Over open ground it drenched the earth with a flat brillience that defined stoneand thorn and eachtuft ofgrass by a sharpmonotone shadow, the intensity of its illumination restricting movement beyond the protective shadeofthe trees to the fleeting disturbances of minute life. Regular patterns of animal activity had been suspended,leaving the desertedglades and clearings ominously still. In the jungle even a slight change in conditions atrecting survival will uzually weigh to the advantageofthe predator. Driven from the savannawhere they had fed from dusk until moonrise on the thin autumn grass, a herd of chital moved offthrough the forest in searchof saferpasture. In

35

the dim light their shadowy movements were almost indistinguishableas they passedbetweenthe serried trees and thick brakesofrattan and bamboo, cropping rapidly at the scant vegetation, now and then pausing to lift their headsand test the air for scent of danger. The pallor of rufous-fawn coats spotted with white, the lowest series of spots on their flanks arranged in longitudinal rows like broken stripes, camouflagedthem well against the dappled undergrowth. But in leaving the open edges of the forest for the protection of heavy cover they were risking much, limiting their chance of rapid flight, which ultimately is their only effective defenceagainst attack. A light wind rosein the tops of the trees.The herd drew in under the mantle of an ancient pipal inhabited by a colonyoflangurs and beganto feed on the leavesand fruit which the monkeys carelessly let fall from its high branches.The langur's wasteful habits foster a common interaction between the two species,whereby the deer repay the vigilance of the monkeys,on whom they can rely to give early warning of an approaching enemy, by drawing offan attackshouldonedevelop- chital beingthe preferred prey. The langurs were sitting warily, as they always sit to roost, not on the thicker parts but towards the ertremities of the branches,with long grey tails curving down through the leavesto balancetheir hunched bodies. Intermittently they scannedthe surrounding jungle, their watchfulness increasing as the shadowscast by the moon grew shorter. Approaching down wind of the chital the wolf rapidly closed the gap between them and came to a halt a hundred yards out from the tree. Lowering its head to the ground it laid backits ears,then pricked them up againand peered intendy, all its sensesstraining towardsthe deer. It moved on again displaying growing excitement, guickening ie pace and then slowing down, wagging its tail, seeming anxious to rush forward yet managing to hold itself in check, restrained as if by an invisible leash. The distance

closed to less than seventy-five yards. Under the tree, standing close to its bunressed silvery trunk, the chital, although still unawareof being at risk, were beginning to show signsofrestlessness,infected by the nervouschattering of the langurs who had already senseddanger. A prelusive hush swept the jungle like a bow-wave in the path of the advancing wolf. At sixty yards one of fhem saw it break cover and gave the alarm - a noise like a sneezefollowed by a cry of 'Khok, l&olg khok', which was taken up briefly by the rest of the troop as they vanishedabout the byways of their roosting tree, hiding behind heavy boughsand knots of foliage, skilfully drawing branchestogether to screen themselvesfrom view. Although they had little to fear ftom the wolf, some of them fled the pipal altogether,springingawayfrom branch to trranchand, with flying leapsbetn'eentrees,disappeared up into the high canopy. At the first note of warning the chital, uncertainof which way to run, made a sudden headlong dash through the undergrowth, and headedstraight towards the enemy. If they had kept going then, they might have got away, but their first scent of the wolf when they were almost on top of it, stoppedthem in their tracks. A grey shadowswiftly detached itself from the indefinite line of scrub and croucheddown in front of them, not fifty feet away,blocking their path. The two leading stagswith anders under velvet raisedtheir stubbled headsin gesturesof defiance; amid the soft bleating of fawns and the grunts of anxious mothers they stood their ground and returned the wolf's impassivestare. Inhibited by the gazeof its prey, a wolf needsthe stimulus of a running animal to affack. But the chital could only delay the inevitable: in the end they would have to run just as surely as the wolf would give chase. Alreadyit had singledout its victim, a withered old buck standing a little away from the herd. Darker in colouring than the others, with two false points on each brow tine

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where it ioined the main beam of his anders, he was long past his prime and a pack of wolves would have mrde short work of him; but a lone animal, grown accustomed to hunting for hares and bandicoots and other small fry, stood lessthan an evenchanceofa kill. The confrontation began to draw out, tension easing as the wolf turned its headmore often to avoid the eyesof the deer; both seemed ready to relax their guard when, unaccountably, the buck wheeled and charged off through the trees, and the wolf went after him. The rest of the herd bolted, scatteringin every direction, plunging through the undergrowth, offering easy targets at each twist and turn of their laboured flight. The wolf concentrated on the buck. This was the critical stageof the hunt: if it failed to get close in these first few seconds it would lose its only chance to attach for unsupportedit could never hope to run the buck down. At full tilt, bounding after its prey, it madea lunge for the flank and missed,its teeth snappedon air with a noise of boards being clapped together, the buck swerved,jinked and with an extra burst of speed showed his assailanta clean pair of heels.Disadvantagedby the loss of momentum, the wolf quickly fell behind and made no attempt to recover the ground. It ran on a little way before slowing to a trot, then, giving up the chasealtogether,turned back on its tracks. Panting a little after its exertions, but otherwise unaffected, the wolf fell into an easy rhphmic gait, loping along purposefully with elbows held in and paws turned outward, its forefeet swinging in the sameline as its hind feet on each side, in that smooth gliding motion which characterizesthe speciesand, notwithstanding its slightly crouchedhindquarters, makesit one of the most graceful of animals. Smaller, of slighter build and with a thinner shorter coat suited to its tropical habitat, the Indian wolf (canis lapus pallipes) differs in outward appearancefrom its northern relatives,but not enough to be classifiedas a separate species. Supeficially the Indian wolf has more

the look of a iackal or a dog: the mane, ruff, hairy cheela and bushy tail which distinguish the grey wolf of the arctic tundra are scarcely evident, though the pale yellow eyes, permanently alert expression and deadly arrangement of teeth quickly dispel any illusions of domestication. Is colouring can vary from a light ochre to rusty brown with darker guard hairs evenly distributed over the neck, back and ail and whitish underparts (which have earned it the epithet, 'palefooted wolf'), creating from a distance an overall impression of greyness. Behaviour, hunting methodq denning habits and character,though necessarilyadaptedto a different environment, are very similar to those of northern wolves. Formerly a predator of wide open spacesevolved to hunt the herd animals of the plains, the Indian wolf was driven through comperition with man to take refuge in the mountains (a Himalayan sub-species- canis lupus laniger) and in the forestsand jungles of the lowlands.Although it still prefers to hunt in pacls over open ground, in the forest,where it could not make such good use of its speed and staminafor the pack tactics of running animalsdown, the wolf soon learned to live off smaller prey and mostly hunted singly or in pairs. Its range became more limited and its diet more varied, but its innate sociability, the strength of family bonds and capacity for emotional aftachments, which are evolved features of a hunting pack's life, remain unchanged.The wolf family, born as early as November or December, in a litter of three to eight cubs, usually say with their parents, with periods away from home, until they reach full adulthood at two or three years, when they will leave to mate and start their own families. If they do not succeed in pairing off they may return to the family in the role of uncle or aunt; a widowed wolf, who will not usually take a second mate (wolves being stricdy monogamous) may do the same, so that the number of wolvesliving togetherat any time may be high, but numbers will always be regulatedaccording

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to the food supply. On the whole, the forest environment encouragessmall families. Shortage of food sometimes forces the wolf to make depredations on domestic stock, earning it the infamous reputation which it has enjoyed for cenfuries throughout most of its range.In India, however,men did not come to fear and hate wolves or to attribute to them the evil characteristics for which the European wolf is so well known in folklore and mythology; and this despite the fact that the Indian wolf, according to district records, was held responsible for the deaths of more human beings than any other animal after the tiger. Contrary to popular opinion wolves, it is now thought, have rarely attacked men, but in India they were known - particularly in times of famine, which threatened the suwival of both men and animals - to prey on defencelesshuman beings, becoming bold enough to enter villages and attack the sick and elderly or steal children. In 19z6 in the districts of Bareilly and Pilibhit, United Provinces, ninety-five people were killed by wolves. The victims were mostly young children, favoured becauseof their size and availability: Indian mothers would take their young with them when they went to work in the fields, leaving their babiesin basketsclose by, but often without proper supervisionand on the very edge of the jungle. No obstacleswere placedin the wolf's path: on the rare occasionwhen a child was seen being carried ofl little or no attempt was made to go after them, for Hindus believed that even one drop of wolf's blood shed anywhere near a village would make their fields infertile. The Santals, however, were bound by no such taboo and wolves, like most other anirnals of the forest, were considered fair game. The wolf broke stride and stopped, lowering its head to investigate a new scent. A hind left cover close by and madeoff hesitantly in the direction of the pipal tree, halting every few yards to look back over her shoulder. Apparently forewarned, the wolfignored her and continued along its

path; not far from where the dam had been standing in the lee of a densethicket, it came upon her fawn hopelessly entangled in a wreath of blackthorn. Without altering its pace it sprang at the struggling creature, dragging it free from the thorn and pinning it to the ground in a single fluid movement. It tore out its throat, lapping quickly at the blood that gushed from the wound, and ripped away a large chunk of flesh from the neck, which it bolted with a few convulsive shakesof the head. The fawn's spindly white legs flailed for a moment in defensive reflex as its belly was slashedopen and its lights spilled smoking on ro the ground, then it lay still. With furtive glancesall aboug the wolf crouched down beside the carcassand began to eat more discriminately, tearing of long strings of fat from the intestinal membrane and chewing them vrith the nice deliberation of a dog champing stems of grass. The muscleson the back of its neck rippled unevenly with the excitations of its jaws, the delicate guard hairs of its mane quivering under a band of light that fell almosr verrically through the trees and seemedto chain the animal to the roof of the forest. The harsh cry of a iungle fowl sounded the all-clear. Life in that quarter of tlre iungle had received the next temporary reprieve. While the wolf fed, immediate danger wasallayed.Gradually the familiar soundsof the night and other noises, peculiar to forests, often unexplainablg returned. The wolf pulled the half-eatencarcassinto the thickot, scraped earth over it and made of. Not far from the kill, as the crow flies perhaps rwo or three miles - the Santal method of measuring distance by the length of time it takes a fresh sal leaf carried in the hand to turn brittle is never yery accurat.. - the wolves had made their den in the enlarged burrow of a porcupine. From under a flat pieceoflaterite on the edgeofa clearing the main entrance, partly concealed by a plum-bush; commanded a limited view acrossthe dried up nullah of t

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sae$h of open scrub bounded on one side by a tamarind grove, marking the site of sorne long-deserted village or cultivation, and the forest wall on the other. There was r second entrance, a tunnel running back into the jungle imrnediately behind the den, but the two young Sanuls from the near-by village of Denganalia,who kept watch on their activities, had not seenthe wolves use it sincethey fir* moved in soon after the end of the rains. For more than three weeks the female wolf had not left the den at all, coming only to the enilance to receive the food, brought by her mate, and eitler eating it there in the den-moudr or taking it back inside, alone. The male made no attempt to follow her - had he done so he would cerainly have been rejected - but remained in the vicinity, lying up in the undergrowth close behind the den durrng the day and ranging more freely by night. After the birth of the whelps some fifteen days ago he had become mote wary and it was only due to their exceptional tracking skill that the Santals had been able to keep up their observation of the animals without disturbing them. Since then they had stepped up their own campaign of waiting for the mom€nt when the female would first Ieavethe den to a nighdy vigil. In position, squatting in the broad fork of the amarind tree since well before dark, they were wrapped in lengths of cotton, thicker and longer than those which made up their ordinary loin-cloths, to protect them from the sudden chill of dew-fall: in a sal forest, the drop in temperature at night canbe a serioushazardl and, asa safeguardagainst snakes,panthers, and perhaps the wolves themselves,each carried his kudi, an instrument combining the virtues of axe, hoe and spade,tucked into his waistband. From where tlrey sat overlooking the nullah not more than thirty yards from the entrance to the den, by the insidious glare of the moon they could make out every detail of the den-mouttr and beyond it seefar enough back into the iungle to locate the opening of the second entrance. Their view of the clearing, however, framed by a careful arrangement of the

feathery leaves and long sicHeshaped fruir of the tamarind, was restricted to the area immediately surrounding the den: they had to be constantlyon the alert in order not to miss anything. When the wolf finally came thar night there was no warning. Distracted a moment by a slight disturbance behind the plum-bush that covered the den mourh, rhey looked back and he was there already, standing immobile in its shadow, calling with a low whine to his mare, whose head had appearedbeyond the fringe ofthe dark hollow. She emergedfully and stood crouching in a submissive posture to greet hirn, wagging her tail as she swung her hindquarters sideways against him. Keeping her ears pinned back she pushed up at his rmzzle with her nose and, lifting one forepawin a playful gesture,begannipping and licking excitedly ar his mouth as if begging for food. The wolf had brought nothing with him. He often came back empty-handed,but this time it was clear from the behaviourof the female,who conrinued to lick greedily at his teeth, that he had certainly eaten and probably killed in the last hour. The significance was not lost on the two men watching from the tamarind. The wolf might have madea kill and then beeninterrupted while eating or even driven off by a rival predatorl but there was another possibility - that he had cached it somewhereand wanted his mate to lave the whelps and return with him to feed on the qrcass. If this was the case, however, and thet moment which the Santals had been waiting for so patiendy had at last arrived, the wolves showed no signs of breaking their routine of the past few weets. When the reunion was over, they went their separate ways, the female back inside the den and her mate into the jungle, leaving the tree-bound onlookers to their disappointment. A second visit from the wolf seemed unlikely but they could not risk abandoning their post before morning; while one of them slept, the other continued to keep watch. 42

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If the moon had been less bright, he would probably have seen nothing. As it was he could not be certain, but halfasleep, staring oyer at the den and beyond it into the trees he thought he saw a shadow, a spirit rather' some bongaof the tamarind grove, rise out of the ground and melt back between the grey stanchions of the forest. Only after it vanished did he realize that the apparition had manifested itself in the very spot where the second entrance to the den had its opening. With the realization that they had almost been outwiffed, fear evaporated and he woke his companion. They waited for a long time before climbing down, and they waited again at the foot of the tree. But there was no sign of movement. They unhooked their kudis and advanced quickly towards the den. One of them slipped on the steep bank of the nallah dislodgng a little earth. Nothing stirred, no reaction to the noise, no wolf leaping from the den mouth or charging out of the undergrowth to challenge them. They approached the entrance and with a few blows of a kudi. cut back the plum-bush. Inside they could hear the whimpering of the pups. They beganto dig out the opening.Luckily the passagewas not more than a few feet long and the earth soft and loose. Cautiously at first, for they had heard of she-wolvesremaining in the den with their cubs to the very last, one of them crawled into the widened mouth and without difficulty retrieved the six struggling pups, handing them one by one to his companion,who placed them in the deep basket they had brought along for tJre purpose.As soon as they had securedtheir prize, the two men hurriedly kicked sorneof the earth back into the gaping den mouth in a token attempt to cover their traces and ran from the clearing, and all tlle way back to the village, constantlylooking over their shouldersto seeifthey were being followed. They knew well enough that a wolf would only atack under extreme and direct provocation, but they were aware, too, that any animal suddenly deprived of its young may behave eratically. It was not until they

had reachedthe palisadesofthe village that they felt safe enough to be a little elated by their success.In two days' time, they would take the cubs to the local 'hat', the weekly fair and market at the village of Kuarh, some twoand-a-half miles north of Denganalia, where if they were lucky enoughto avoid competition from leopard,bear and even tiger cubs, they would sell them for a few annas apiece. It was not much of a return for all the long cold nights spent sitting up and watching from the tamarind tree, but Santalsfrom a smalljungle hamlet,finding money hard to comeby at the bestof times, could be happy with liule in these lean war years. They celebrated with a jug ofrice beer. Later that night they heard prolonged howling from the jungle and knew that the wolves had finally discovered their loss. They checked again that their huts and the compound,in which they had put the whelps,were secure. They had heard a story about a Sanal from another villap who had stolen the cubs of a tigress in similar circurF stances,only she had come to the housein the middle of the night and taken her cubs back,leavingthe man's wife, who had woken and cried out in alarm, so badly mauled that she died from her wounds. Sometime just before dawn the howling sounded very close. It came in short bouts, every half-an-hour or so until first light, when it ceasedand was not heard ag:ainuntil the following evening. For severalnights, even after the cubs had been taken and sold for a poor price in the market, tlre wolves came and howled outside the village. During the day sometimesthey were heard by women gathering roots and herbs in the forest and occasionally they were seen. On the first day, somewherenot far from the village, a party of women were followed and pesteredby the shewolf. The animal behaved in a strange, distressedtnanner, rolling over as if in pain and dragging her belly along the ground, emitting short plaintive cries. At one point she came so close that the women had to drive her away by throwing sticks at her.

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They noticedthat whereshehadbeenlying the earthwas madewet by milk streakedwith blood. After a few days the wolves movedaway to another part of the jungle and, as far as anyonecan remember, werenot se€nor heardagainnearDenganalia.Someyears Iater when the village was hauntedby anothershe-wolf in rather different circurnstances, non€of thosewho had seen the mother with the gorged and laceratedteats roamingthe forest in searchof her cubs, would be able to say whetheror not it wasthe sameanimal.Indeed,it would not occurto them to makea comparisonbetweena wolf and a creatureof the spirit world.

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It happenedin 1916,during the long surnmermonths of April andMay whenthe Santals'tinypaddyfieldsthat skirt the edgeofthe iunglearebakediron-hardby the sun andthemenworkall dayin the heatanddustbreakingup the earth, to makeit ready for sowingby the first rain. The previousyear in Mayurbhanj tle harvesthad been disappointingand rice stocks, intended to last until October,werealreadyrunning low: if the rains camelate they couldexpectseverehardshipby the followingseason. But though rice is the staple food, unlike his Hinilu neighbourswhosediet is restrictedby religion,the Santal mayeat almostanythingand cansurvivewhereevena rat will sarve.All the produceof the foresgthe roots,berrieg leavesand grasses, the meatof tiger, bearand porcupine, of crows,snakesind frogs,evenantsand termites,maybe a sourceof nourishmentto hin5 and whereno fresh meat is availablehe will eat carrion. While they waitedfor the monsoonto break,searching th" rky eacheveningfor the sign ofa barredcloud in the west,propitiatingthe tribal deitiesasthe daysgrewsteadily fierier and the food supply dwindled,the Santalsturned as they did every year at this time to their traditional occupationofhunting. Towardsthe endofthe hot weather conditionswereparticularlyfavourable,for as the jungle

dried out and the undergrowth withered away the animals, deprived of cover, and being forced to ffavel further for food and water, were more often exposed to danger and generally in a weaker condition than at other times of the year. The Santals,who as a rule hunted individually or in small village groups, took advantage of their plight and organized cooperative hunting expeditions with neighbouring villagesand tribes rhat often led to slaughteron a massive scale. A regular fixture in the tribal yslr, these expeditions involving the deployment of hundreds of men over vast tracts of iungle took place under the auspicesof the state of Mayurbhanj, chiefly so that the Maharajah could have some control over the massacreof game and take part in the sport if he wished, but also becauseany large assembly of armed men presented, if not a threat to Government, at least the potential for some kind of disturbance. In the zummer of tgr6, as the preparations for Deshua Sendra" the rnost important tribal hunt of the year, got under way, that potential was realized. The essential information about the hunt - when it would take place - had been carried through the jungle by the traditional means of a knotted string, known as Gira gath, btought by messengerfrom village to village and untied one knot at a time by eachhead-man,who always left the correct number of days in knots that remained until the date of the hunt before passingit on. Details that demanded less accuracy, such as the number of men required from each village, where the hunters should congregateat the start, and meet up againat the end, were Ieft to the messengers.On this occasionthey were also responsiblefor carrying some additional information that turned out to be the causeofall the trouble. How tle rumour got started is not knovrrn,but it was based on the news that the Santals, among other tribes, were soon to be recruited as coolies for the war effort. Although Malurbhanj was a feudatory state and not part of British India, the Maharajah, Puri Chandra Bhani Deo,

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was a keen supporter of the Rai, and having himself servedwith distinction in the war, saw no reasonwhy the aboriginalsshould not help saveIndia from the Germans. The local sardars, or landowners, had been instructed to inform the headmen of the villages under their iurisdio' tion ofthe Maharajah'swishesand many had alreadydone so; but the messagesomehowbecamedistorted and by the time of Deshua Sendra a serious misunderstandinghad arisen. Convinced that they had been told a lie about their recruitment as coolies, the Santals had come to believe that the war was a greatvillage somewherefar away which required each day coundesshuman sacrificesin order to prosper, and that in reality they were to be sent to this villageto provide the blood for which it thirsted. Naturally they were not disposed to go, and as this simple but horifying picture of their fate accompaniedthe knotted string announcingthe day ofthe hunt through the iungle, a mood of revolt spread among the Santals.And as the warm nights leading up to Deshua Sendrafilled with the sound of drumming carried for miles on the still air, old and perennial grievances, chiefly against the rapacity of Hindu moneylenders and landlords, were recalled and the dancesand songsof the 1856 Santal Rebellion were performed again with rebom enthusiasm. On the appointed day the hunt took place as planned. After the customary sacrifi.ceof a red fowl to the gods of the locality, columns of men arrangedon four sides of a vast squareofjungle, marshalledall at once by the deep reverberative notes of the sakpa horns, turned in to face each other and in long wavering lines began to converge on the centre.Behind the hunters and their dogscamethe musicians, who set up a regular cacophony orr na,gr& drums, bells and cymbals, commenting on the progress of the hunt with changing rhythms that announcedthe movementsof the animalsas they ran before them or sometimes broke back through the lines. It was during these

initial stagesof the hunt, still early in the mo'rning, that in the north-eastern section ofthe iungle area covered by the people of Denganalia, Topera, Bhadua Sol and oths near-by villages, a couple of wolves were said to have outwitted the hunters by lyt"g low until they had passed by and were then seenb'reakingcover and running off'free and laughing'. They were remembered - though there may have been some confusion here with what occurred later - becauseone of the hunters claimed that the wolves had been accompanied by another animal; he had only caught a glimpse of it and could not give it a name, but what he had seen fq some reason the man was unwilling to describe. After the hunt was over the tribes teturned to their villages to divide up the spoils. Later the women had brought the men rice beer and then left them to feast,drink, alk, sing and dance their way through the night; but discussion soon furned from hunting to politics and the mood ofgaiety reverted to one ofapprehension over the cruel edict that would send them away as sacrificesto the 'great village of blood'. The following day, instead of dispersingand returning to their villagesin the usual way, several bands of tribesmen in the south of the district, still inflamed with drink and full of terror at the prospect of their imminent destruction, went on a rampagethrougfi one of the more prosperous Hindu villages, where an extortionate money-lender was known to live, causing considerableuproar and some bloodshed.The police and local militia were promptly called out, which resulted in t m€l6e;though the Mayurbhanj government,anxiousnot to provoke the Santals into open rebellion as in Bengal during the 1856 uprising, withdrew its forces as soon as the leaders agreed to alk. After the grievancesof the Santalshad beenaired and their fearsof being sent off to war put to rest, the situation defuseditself and everyone went home. There were no reprisals but the Deshua Sendra was banned for the following year and in future it

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was made illegal to pass the knoned string as a means of calling together the tribes for any purposewhatever. In Denganaliaand other villagesof the Muruda districg the troubles had beenconained evenbeforethe hunt began, chiefly by the action of the local sardar, Gopabandha Pattanaik,who, being forewarned of the Santals' despair over the recruitment question, had visited on horseback as many as possible of the ninety or so villages in the locality for which he and his brother wtre responsible,to explain the misunderstanding. But those not involved in the rioting had nonethelessmadecommon causerrith their fellows in the south, for the bond of kinship among Santals is strong, and for several weeks a mood of dissent and resentment of Hindu authority that was still tinged with fear lingered on in the hearts of many. Suggestibleat the best of times, the people of Denganalia'were perhapsmore than usually predisposedtowards the zupernatural after the Deshua Sendra disturbances. When a small hunting party returning to the village through the forestone eveningat sundownreportedhaving seen a small creature that was neither animal nor human darting about between the sal trees until it vanished as if swallowed by the shadows, the village elders at once declared that this was a malevolent spirit, a bongaor bhut, cometo haunt them and to succeedwherethe Hindus had failed in carrying them offto the village of blood. A second apparition in another part of the iungle some days later did nothing to dispel their fear and when it was revealed that on both occasionsthe'bhut' had been accompanied by a female wolf, although it was agreed that this must be the same animal sighted during the hunt, the wolf, too, was given supernatural stafus and from then on there could be no connectionmade betweenthis wolf-spirit and any living animal, No attempt was made thereforeto hunt or drive offthe creaturesand the placesin the fungle where they had beenseenwere given a wide berth. The villagers placed themselvesin the hands.of their naekeor pnest

who led them to invoke the aid of Maran Buru, the of blood presidingDeity of the Santals,to makesacrifices junction north two roads of the at the sacredgroveat the for the boundary beer ofthe village,to leaveofferingsofrice deitiesand pray to the godsof the forest to protect and deliver them from the bhuts, and confound their evil intentions. In different circumstancesthe villagers might have appealedto their localsarilar,Mr Pattanaik,for temporal help; but in the aftermathof the DeshuaSendradAbdcle, there waslittle wish for contactwith an authority which many still believedwantedto sendthem to the war. At that time the Santalsbelievedthe malevolentpowerof the demons,which none could doubt who had been unfortunateenoughto set eyeson them, wasso strongthat it could only be counteredby magic. The 'demons'continuedto be seenaboutthe forestby the peopleof Denganaliauntil the monsoonbroke,when the dreadfulapparitionssuddenlyceased.With the release oftensionbroughtby the rain, asthe iunglequicklygrew greenand luxuriant againand the paddysprangup in the by evil spirits soddenfields,carnerelief from persecution and the threat of war alike. They were left in peace,the magicof the naebewasheld to havebeeneffectiveand for the time beingat leastthe episodewasforgotten.

ChapterThree

By late September of rgzo the same grey sullen mass of cloud that gathers morning and evening rvith monotonous regularityto lower over,then inundate,the Bengalcountryside for more than three months of eachyear, had at last begun to break up, giving way with intermittent downpours to ever longer periodsofclear sky. The rains, never before time, were coming to an end, and it was with a feeling of release,shared by anyone who had spent the long sticky summer coopedup in someoffice in the plains, that the ReverendSingh, accompaniedby Karan Hansda, his driver and cook, and Daniel, his bearer, leaving orphanageand church behind them, set out from Midnapore by bullock cart to visit the Santal villages in the cool forestsofthe south. Although he prided himself on his stamina and fortitude 'the Lord's Vineyerd', the when it came to working in padre generally preferred to wait a month or so for the cold weather to come in before starting of on tour, as in September many roads would still be impassable, most rivers dangerousor difficult to cross, and the jungle, fresh and appealing in the mind's eye, would be a dank unhealthy wilderness. A few weeks before, however, he had received a mess:rgefrom Bhagobhat Khatua of Salgaria" still active as his chief reader and catechist among the Santals, asking that he should ma"kean earlier start to his tour than usual. Whatever reason was given it evidently found favour with Singh, for although he stipulated that he had to be back in Kharagpur before the end of the month, he turned up as promised on zo September in

Chainsole, a sizeablevillage lying some twenty-eight miles south-westof Midnapore on the north bank of the Sub arnarekha.At that time Chainsole was one of the main Christian centres in the district, even boasting a small wattle and daub church which the Reverend Singh had built with the help ofthe local peopleseveralyearsearlier. The church was the presentfocus of a long-standingrow betweenthe S.P.G. and American Baptists, who over the last hallcentury had poachedeach other's convertswith such zeal that mutual enmity had slowly communicated itself to their bewilderedneophyes. It was most likely in this connection, to settle some dispute, that Singh was summoned there by his Catechist. Yet it can only have been a pretext, for Bhagobhathad a more pressingreason for calling him, which had nothing to do with mission rivalry or, for that matter, with Chainsole; but he had calculated, sensibly enough, that the Reverend Singh would not havecome out to the mffissil in Septemberon the strength of a ghost story. Whether or not he revealedthe true purpose of their iourney before leaving Grainsole, Bhagobhatmanagedto persuadethe Reverend Singh to extend the limited tour they had originally planned. Instead of remaining in the Chainsole area, where villages were accessibleand the countryside relatively tame, they set off for the wilds of Nayagaram,taking with them Janu Tudu, one of Singh's Chainsoleconverts (hotly disputed by the Baptists) to be their pilot in the jungle. They travelled south atong the eastbank ofthe Subarnarekhauntil they reachedDhashragat where, after the usual haggling with the ferrymen, who always had to be reassuredthat the bullock cars would not sink the ferry, 4nd the usual wait for the wind to turn in their favour, tley were punted acrossthe great brown sweep of water, carried and spun around by the current like the frail skiffs that plied the river night and day for the abundanceof fuh brought by the rains. They finally landed several hundred yards down-stream, a mile

or so from the village of Nayagaram. From thete they continued south along kuftha toads, rough tracks, thick with mud, barely negotiable even by bullock cart, as far as Salgaria, where they spent the night in Bhagobhat's home. The next day, after the Reverend Singh had celebrated beforetle assembledvillage, the party set offagain, and heading due west crossed the four miles of open savanna and khas jungle that lay between Salgaria and the Mayurbhani border. Half a mile on they came to their destination of Godamuri, one of three tiny hamlets set close together behind bamboo stockades and groves of tamarind, betel and palash trees on the edge of a wide expanseof sal forest. In Godamuri Bhagobhat had arrangedfor them to stay with a herdsmanof the Kora uibe called Chunarem, converted to Christianity by the Reverend Singh some years ago and since become, undet Bhagobhat's direction, one of their most reliable and stalwart'workers in the field'. It was Chunarem' nonetheless, who had extracteda promise from Bhagobhatto do all in his power to bring the padre out to Godamuri as soon as possible to save his people from immediate desuuction by evil spirits. Late that evening when the Reverend Singh and his party had prayed and eatenand were settling down for the night under the lean-to cowshedin Chunarem'scourtyard, their host and his wife came to them in'evident distress and, after the customaryprevarication,told the padreabout the bhuts living in the iungle close by the village. Chunarem, who seemedvery much afraid, claimed to have seen these 'ghosts' himself at a place they frequented in the heart ofthe forest about sevenmiles from there, describing them as manush'bagha(man-beasts) with a human form and the head of a devilish animal. At first he could say little elseabout them that wascoherentotherthan to begthe priest to come with him and exorcisethe spot beforedeath overtook them all. Prompted by the Reverend Singh's questions, however, he revealed that the nanush-bagha 53

had been seen of and on over some period of time at a greatdistancefrom Godamuriin the thickestpart of the jungle; but becausethey were frr awty, apart from offeringpujasto ward offevil wheneverthey happenedto seethem,peopleignoredthe ghostsandforgotaboutthem. Then threeor four monthsago,just beforethe beginning of the rains,the manush-baghahad begunto appeiumore frequentln usually at dusk and sometimesin the early morning, much closerto the village.Although pujas and sacrificeswereofferedto drive them awayand Chunarem and other Christianshad prayedto theirGod, the ghosts had remainedin the vicinity and the peoplehad bicome so frightenedthat they wantedto abandontheir homes. The ReverendSinghhadbeenpreparedfor Chunarem's storyby BhagobhatKhatua,whohadusedit to explainthe stateofabiectterrorin whichtheyhadfoundthepeopleof Godamurion arrival.Although interestedby Bhagobhat's claimthat he hadheardthe sameghoststoryfrom reliable sourcesin othervillages,Singhfound it difficultto overcomehis initial repugnanceat what wasclearlya caseof reversionto primitive superstition.He had reprimanded Bhagobhatfor his creduliryand togetherin prayerthar eveningtheyhadaskedthatthepeopleofGodamurishould be 'raised from the slimy depthsof heathenism,and brought from darknessinto the glorious light of our BlessedLord'.l Nonetheless, as Chunaremended his story with a further desperateplea for help in which he was ioined by his wife, the ReverendSingh, finding it impossibleto doubt their sincerity,and by now not a little curious,agreedto go with him to the iungle the next day and seethe ghostsfor himself. Travelling mostlyon - The expeditionwasnot a success. foot, sincethe iungle wastoo thick for the bullock carts to pass,they venturedsomesix or sevenmiles into the interiorto the south-east of Godamuriin the directionof AmardaRoad.furiving a little beforedusk at the place supposedlyhauntedby the ghosts,identified by a very 54

large termite mound, they waited in vein for something to happen as the gloom ofthe forest gatheredaround them. 'We At nightfall the Reverend Singh called off the vigil. had failed to see any sign of it,' he wrote in his iournal 'I under the entry for z4 September. thought it was all false and did not care much.'2 But if he was feeling a litde foolish for allowing himself to become involved in the ghost hunt, he consideredthat he had at least done his duty by Chunarern. The herdsman, however, was far from being reassured and although easily prevailed upon to lead the disgruntled and rather nervous party away from the haunted spot, he insisted that they should come back and try again the next day. The Reverend Singh refused him on the grounds that he had to return to Kharagpur and with that the party withdrew to the near-by village of Denganalia. While they were setting up camp the padre received a visit from the village rnondhal or headman, Mr Babusahu, and others known to him from earlier missionary visits, who again told him of the ghostsin the forest that were terrorizing the neighbourhoodand beggedhim to rid the -Ihe mondholclaimed that he had reported place of them. the matter to the local sardar, Mr Pattanaik, and requested his help several times, but that nothing had come of it and that now they had given up all hope. Impressed, despite himself, by the powerful influence which the 'ghosts' seemed to exert on the imaginations of the villagers, the Reverend Singh reluctantly agreed to change his mind and to pay a secondvisit at dawn to the haunted part of the forest. In talking to the mondhal he had also learnt two interesting pieces of information that had not emerged from the garbled accounts of Chunarem and others. The manash-bagha,it seemed, for the last four months had actually been living inside the enormous ant mound, coming out and going in by the large holes in its basel and whenever they were sighted, more often than not it was in the company of wolves, albeit wolf'spirits.

The second expedition turned out to be as abortive as the first. They watched concealedbehind trees for more than an hour, but saw no sign ofwolf, ghost or any kind of activity about the ant mound. The Reverend Singh, however, had begun to entertain the possibility that the manush-baghamight not after all be a figment of the primitive imaginationbut somerare speciesofwild animal never seen before in those parts, and therefore like anything strange and new regarded by the aboriginals as enchanted.His curiosity as a hunter arousedand anticipating perhapsthe addition ofa unique trophy ro the rarher dim collection on his study wall, before leaving the place he ordered the villagers to build a mach.anor shooting platform in a large mohua tree, its trunk noticeably scarred with the clawmarks of bears, that stood about fifty yards away from the ant mound and commandeda fairly good view of the surrounding jungle. He advised them how to construct the machanand where to position it in the tr€€ at a height of about fifteen feet above the ground, and warnedagainstcutting the wood for the platform in the vicinity of the ant mound or making any disturbancewhich might frighten the animals or'ghosts', as he was still obliged to call them, away from their lair. Although they were'afraidto remain there without him the Santalsagreedto do what the padre askedon the understanding that he would return as soon as possibleand kill the ghoss. He gavethem his word as a shikari. Later that morning of z5 Septemberthe ReverendSingh caught the train to Kharagpur at the Flag railway station in AmardaRoad somesix miles south of Denganalia,taking with him his bearerDaniel, but leavingbehind Bhagobhat, Chunarem and the others to look after the bullock carts and equipment which were still lying up in Godamuri. Since he was unable to give a firm date of return, he arrangedwith one of them to come back and wait for him there in a week's time. fu it turned out he stayed away rather long€r than anticipated,kept at home for more than

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ten days by parish duties and other cornmiunents. During that time he said nothing of his adventures in the jungle to his family or friends in Midnapore, but took into his confidence two Anglelndians, who worked as fitters and guards on the railways in Kharagpur and who in the past had sometimesaccompanied him on his missionary tours for rough shooting. Their nameswere Henry Richards and Peter Rose. Of the two he best knew Richards, a tall lightskinned man with a limp, who had lived in Midnapore for sometime and been active in church affairs; but he prob ably first mentioned the story of the ghosts to Peter Rosg since it was to maffy his son, Alexander Rose, that he had cut short his tour in Mayurbhanj. The wedding took place on z8 Septemberat All Saints Church in Kharagpur, and at the reception afterwardsin the South Insitute the Reverend Singh was unable to resist telling his old hunting companion of his experiencesin the forests of Denganalia which, he claimed, had nearly prevented him from attending the ceremony. Exaggerating a little no doubt, he managed to convince him, as he had by now convinced himself, that there redly might be some strange animal living in the haunted ant mound' and suggestedthat it would be an interesting iaunt ifall three of them were to go back there and try and bring it to bag. Rose and Richards needed in any caselittle persuading. Having arranged to take a fortnight's leave from the B.N.R., for they intended to get some shootingeven if the other matter came to nothing, they met the Reverend Singh in Kharagpur a week later, equipped with rifles, camp kit and Mr Rose'sfield glass,and on the eveningof 5 October the three men set offtogether for the Mayutbhani border. They reached Godamuri on Friday, after meeting up with Bhagobhat and the bullock carts en route, and stayedthat night in Chunarem'syard. The next morning they went into Denganalia forest to take a look at the home of the ghosts and check that the Santals had built the

machenaccording to instructions. The white-ant mound, which they examinedthrough the field glass,taking care not to go too near, stood on the edgeofa clearinga short distance from the by-path, which the villagers had used until recendy on theh way to collect roots and leavesand wood from different parts ofthe jungle, but had abandoned becauseof the ghosts. Between ten and twelve feet high (roughly rwice average size although termite mounds of twenty feet in those parts were not unheard of), shaped something like a menhir, it reminded the Reverend Singh of a Hindu temple - perhapsthe Juggernathin Midnapore with its tall fluted roof in rust-colouredstone corresponding to the red earth and bevelled surfacesof the termite structure. Evidently it had long since been abandoned by the termiteselsethe dome,well-worn by wind and rain, and the cavitiesaround the baseof the mound would have been kept repaired; but it seemedpossible that larger animals had since taken up residence,as they commonly did, for some of the holesappearedto have been widened and rubbed smooth and looked like tunnels leading to the centreof the mound. There was no telling, however,which of the holes might be the main entrance; the machanhad beenbuilt to overlookthe largestand the best worn. After inspectingthe platform, sited so that if there was a moon its light would fall from behind the mohua tree on to the ant mound, the Reverend Singh declared everything in order and he and his companionsleft the place as quietly as they had come. The stage was set. They returned at about 4.3o in the afternoon and mountedthe platform by the rope ladder which hung down on the blind side of the mohua. The last man aboard pulled it up after him. Besidesthe padre and the AngloIndians there was Bhagobhat,Chunaremand perhapsone other on the machan.It gave them little room for manoeuvre. The three men with guns sat to the front enjoyrng an unrestrictedview, while the others had to perch as best they could on the spreading branchesof the tree. The two

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railway men caffied conventional rifles, the Reverend Singh his favourite zo-bore Westley Richards, which fired shot and ball over and under, but the padre soon handed his piece over to Bhagobhat and concentrated on using the field glass.They settled down to wait, trying to keep silent and still under constant attack from mosquitoes, flying beetles,white jute moths and a myriad of insect speciesattracted by the strong scent of the mohua - 'the tree of life', as the Santalscall it, feeder of men, animals and birds, and supporter of parasitic plants like hoya orchids and climbing ferns, but also a frequent host to snakes. Without making any movement they checked the near foliage while it was still light for any unwelcome guest, looking out particularly for the beautiful but deadly emerald green tree snake: so thin it could easily be mistaken for a twig, its victirns were mostly bitten in the face while walking under trees, having failed to spot its tiny lozenge-shapedhead poised motionless among the leaves. From the point of view of comfort the rnohua was hardly the most suitableplacefor the machan,butthat wasnot the important consideration; the men were all hardened to jungle life and as they waited and watchedand listenedfor any sign of movement from the ant mound, minor irritations were forgotten in the unreasonableexpectationthat something was bound to happen. The constant whirr of cicadas and other minute instruments in the familiar backgroundmusic of the iungle, momentarily silencedby their arrival, had returned soon after they had installed themselves, at first to deafen them and then to fall away in their ears to a low generalized hum, almost a silence from which the least irregular noise stood out sharply defined. The soft whistling of green fruit-pigeon and steady whooping of langurs from a near-by wild fig. tree would suddenly give way to the ratde of a porcupine's ail quills, a warning sign eagerly interpreted by the watcherson the platform; or a flock of jungle fowl scratchiog op dead leaves in the lantana would begin to sound

like the rnovement of larger game and somebody's grip would tighten on the stock of a rifle, grown clammy in the cool, humid atmosphere.But nothing came. By half past five the light was fading fast; they felt the evening wind on their facesand heard it in the tops of the sal; it was the time when the animals begin to appear. On the rnachanthe tension rose. Scanning through the field glass the Reverend Singh followed the creeping shapes of pea-fowl through the long grass beyond the mound, here and there catching sight of a green-crested, periscopic head, alertly raised. A litde further on he picked up a large grey shape moving slowly between the trees. He lost it in his excitement but caught up with it a moment later only to recognizethe shuffling gait and cumbersomestanceof a sloth bear climbing on to its hind legs to lick the ant-soil sticking ro the trunk of a sal. Although it was a long way out of range he hoped his companionswould not seeit in casethey were tempted to take a shot. They were sound enough men, but in the rather iumpy atmosphere on board the machan it was impossibleto have absoluteconfidencein anyone holding a gun. It was almost dark. In the distancethe chuckling call ofa night-iar soundedlike a stonebouncing away over ice. The Reverend Singh had his glasstrained on the base of the white ant mound. The eerie form of a large, evilsmelling fruit bat sailed close by the platform on noiseless leatherywings,starding its occupants.Just then Singh saw a wolf emergefrom one of the holes and run off into the undergrowth. It was followed in quick zuccession by a secondwolf and a thfud with two cubs all coming one afrer the other, as the size of the hole would not allow two to passtogether.Behind them he saw somethingelse. 'Close after the cubsr' he noted in his iournal, camethe'ghost'- a hideouslooking being, hand, foot and body like a humanbeing; but the headwasa big ball of somo tling coveringthe shouldersand the upper portion ofthe bust leaving only a sharp contour of the face visible. Close at is

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heelsthere cameanotherar{ul cteatureeractly like the first' but smallerin size.Their eyeswerebright and piercing,unlike humaneyes... The first ghost appearedon the ground up to its bust' and placingits elbowson the edgeofthe hole, lookedthis side and tlrat sideand jumpedout. It lookedall round tle placefrom the mouth of tlre hole before it leapedout to follow the cubs. It wasfollowedby anothertiny ghostof tlre samekind, behaving in the sameInanner.Both of them ran on all fours.3

6r

As soon as they saw therq Rose and Richards raised their guns to shoot. The Reverend Singh, engrossed in watching, was only just quick enough to hold up their barrelsl offering them the field glass, he said that he felt sure that the ghosts were in fact human children' When they had all had a look through the glass,although 'ghosts' did visibility was by now extremely poor and the not stay long before following the wolves into the iungle, everyone on the machan agreed that the creatures most probably were human - except for Chunarem, who could not be persuaded that they were anything but manushbagha and was resentful that no one had tried to shoot them. The Reverend Singh could see that the man was still afraid and did not press the matter. After descending from the mochan,the party rejoined the bullock carts, which were waiting on the nearestcart track a mile or so away, and returned to Godamuri by late evening. The next day, ro October, they saw the ghosts again from the machan.This time there could be no doubt about their human origin, but Chunarem, zupported by the people of Godamuri and Denganalia, continued to deny the truth. When the Reverend Singh askedthem if they would provide some men to help him dig out the white ant mound and rescue the children, they refused flatly. 'You are only here for a day,' Chunaremtold Singh, as he 'but we have to live here. When you go later recalled, will play havoc with us and away, these manush-bagha.r would kill us all.'a Retreatingstubbornly into the darkness

ofsuperstition they left no room for discussionand Singh, who by now had thought of another plan, let the subject drop. Before leaving the areahe paid a visit to the near-by village of Nalgoia,wherethe local sardarrMr Gopabandha Pattanaik, received him with all the courtesy of a Hindu gentlemanon the thatched verandaofhis houseand over Iight refreshment lisrened attentively while the padre recounted the extraordinary events of the past night. After hearing his story Mr Pattanaikmade profuseapologiesfor refusing to take the matter seriously until now and politely regretted the unwillingness to cooperate shown by the local people. Ofering to help in any way he could (although privately he may have retained some doubts), he suggested that the most sensiblecourseof action would be to send word to Dibakar Bhanj Deo, the Maharajah's hunting omcer,to comeover fromBaripada and organizea hunting party and, with the sanction of the Maharajah, to caprure the children. Having alreadyvetoedthe suggestionof Rose and Richards, that they should shoot the wolves from the machanand try to recover the children themselves,on the grounds that it was too risky - the children seemedto be able to run extremely quickly and if they w€re not killed by a stray bullet would certainly disappearinto the forest before they could catch them - the ReverendSingh felt at first somewhatdoubtful about the idea of a hunting parry. He was, however, personally acquainted with both the Maharaiah and Dibakar, as he explained grandly to Mr Pattanaik; his brother-in-law, Iswari Singh, who had married his sister, Bimolla, worled in the office of the Dewan of Mayurbhanj; and, having shot with Dibakar on several occasions,he believed that he could be persuaded to cooperate in his plan. Insisting that the only safe way to capture the children would be to surround the termite mound and dig out the den, he revealed his intention of going to a distant village, where the people had never heard of the nanuslt-bagha,and hiring some men ro come brck with him to do the iob. He agreedto Mr pattanaik's 6z

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sending for Dibakar on condition that, if he came, he should await his return b€fore attempting any rescue operation. The ReverendSingh left Godamuri on rr October and was away for six days. Accompanied by Roseand Richards he travelled by bullock caft, crossing the border into Bengal and following the road north for some twenty miles or so tlrough the forest of Tapoban until they came to the village of ?atherdogra, not far from the old Hindu temple of Tapoban. It is not clear why Singh had to go so far to get help or why the iourney took as long as six days. He may have put in some missionary work on the way, or Rose and Richards may have insisted on doing a little shooting; or it may have been that Patherdograwas the nearestvillage where he could be certain of getting help, since there was a Christian settlement there. The villagers mostly belongedto the Lodha tribe, a criminal castewho were much feared in the districq which was also perhaps an advantagein that they would not be easily influenced by the Santals of Denganalia. Singh often stopped by Patherdogra on his way to or from the villages in the south to visit the ReverendKenan, who wasstationedthere and, although an American Baptist, a friend of his. Whether Father Kenan was at home on this occasionSingh does not say; if he was, he may not have told him about rescuing the children in case the story got back to the 'Here I Lodhas, who as yet knew nothing of the ghosts. 'to do a spoke to the villagers,' Singh wrote, iob for us in jungle like temple door a by cutting for us an opening the promised them their I in one of the white ant mounds. They agreed and for work, the daily wagesand tip money the haunt for following, straight we started back the day with regard None of us told anything wolves. them of the to the ghostsliving therein.'s When they reached Nalgofa the Reverend Singh found Dibakar Bhanj Deo, the Maharajah'shunting officer, and Bhaduri Singh, a well-known shikari from Baripada,

waiting for him at the house of Mr Pananaik. They had received the king's firll permission to carry out the rescue. Dibakar had alsomanagedto persuadethe men of Denganalia, Kosdia and one or two other villages to take part in the hunt on the understanding that they would not have to go near the haunted lair. Everything was ready. Irn mediately upon the padre's return word was sent round to the villages. By eight o'clock the following morning, Sunday 17 October, the Santalshad taken up their positions in the jungle, in a rough circle drawn at a radius of about a mile from the white-ant mound waiting for the signal. Lasa Marandi of Denganalia,then a young man of, sixteen,held a place in the line alongsidehis father, Gita Marandi, and Motra Maii. He remembershow everyone felt afraid. 'Some of the older men were sayingthey would ratler stand unarmed against the charge of a tiger than come face to facewith the ghosts,But at the sound of the sahwahorns they raised a shout and we all began to walk towards the cave of the ghosts.It wasa still beatand our drums were silent. Many of us believedwe wete going to our destructionbut we also felt sure that Dibakar and the others would succeedin killing the ghostswith their guns and rid the place of them once and for all.'6 On board the nachon Dibakar was less confident. Nobody knew for cerain whether the wolves and children were inside tJremoundl if they were near by in the forest, it was hoped they would run before the beatersand take refuge in the den, but should they chooseto double back he was doubtful that the Santal line would hold. On the ground beneath the mohua tree the Reverend Singh waited with the hired diggers, ready to supervise the rescuewhen the time came.He had told his friends on the rnachan,Dibakar, Bhaduri Singh, Richards and Rose, not to fire on the wolvesor any other animalsunlesshuman life was in danger and at all coststo avoid risking the lives of the children. If possiblehe wantedto capturethe wolves as well as the children alive.

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There was no sign of movement from the termite mound. As the Santals closed in only small game, a few frightened hares and a bandicoot got up before them and ran to and fro acrossthe clearing.Nobody paid any attention. The line of beatersdrew to a halt about a hundred yards out from the mound. They stood in silence, iust visible from the machan, their gamchas showing white between the trees and here and there a spearheador sword catchinga ray of sunlight. Dibakar signalledthem forward but nothing would induce the Santalsto come closer. The Reverend Singh now stepped forward at the head of the little band of Lodhas and advancedwarily on the termite mound. The Lodhas carried kodalis for digging' but many were also armed with bows and arrows: although they still knew nothing ofthe ghoststhey had been warned that there might be wolves inside the mound, but instructed not to kill them unlessthey had to. While half of them beganto hack away at the hard brittle surfaceof the abandoned termitary, the others kept guard. The Reverend Singh stood back a little to watch. Almost as soon as the men began digging two wolves came out round the far side of the mound and ran off towards the beaters. As Dibakar had expected,the line broke at once and the animals escaped.Then a third wolf appeared,a female, which Singh took to be the mother wolf, for instead of running offlike the othersshemadefor the Lodha diggers, scattering them to all sides before diving back into the hole. She came out again and raced round, growling furiously and pawing the ground. Lowering her head with bared teeth and ears flattened against her neck, her tail whipping threateningly from side to side, she refused to leave the spot. The wolf made a second charge at ttre diggers, only this time the bowmen were standing by at close rangel before the Reverend Singh could stop them they loosed off their arrolvs and pierced her through, killing her instantly. In the circumstancesit seemsdoubtful if the animal could have been captured unharmed, at

least without iniury to the diggers, but Singh blamed himself for what happened. After the event he claimed somewhat dubiously that he was so enraptured by the mother wolf's brave defence of her young (who were still inside the mound) that he became 'dumb and inert'and did nothing. Although aware of the particular inteiest in preservingthe life of the animal, he had failed understandably enough to realize just how important it would turn out to be. In the meantime the rescueof the children was his only concern. He ordered the men to lay down their w€apons and return to work, Iending a hand himself at diggi"g out the ant mouud, still unsure of what they would find. 'After the mother wolf was killed,' Singh wrote, 'it was an easy iob. When the door was cut out, the whole temple fell all around, very forarnately leaving the central cave open to the sk5 without disturbing the hollow inside . . . The two cubs and the other two hideous beings were there in one corner, all four clutching togetherin a monkey-ball. It was really a task to separate them from one another. The ghosts were more ferocious than the cubs, making faces, showing teeth, making for us when too much disturbed, and running back to reform the monkey-ball.'7 By now Dibakar, Rose,Richards and the others from the machanhad joined them on the ground and everybodywas crowding round to see the ghosts, making ilggestions about how to securethem. One of the diggershad already been bitten on the hand and although the Lodhas appeared unafraid of the.creatures there was a certain reluctance to handle them. Amid general confusion the Reverend Singh remained firmly in control of the situation. He had the idea of using a make-shift net. 'I collectedfour big sheets from the men, called in that region gelop (the villager's winter wrapper), and threw one of the sheetson this ball ofchildren and cubs and separatedone from the other. In this manner we separatedall of them, each one tied up in a sheet,leaving only the head free.'8

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Four stmggling, whimpering bundles were laid on the ground a little way off from the body of the she-wolf while Singh and the others inspected their former den. A large cavity set below ground level with as many as seven tunnels leading up to the surface, it was shaped like the bottom of a kettle. The inside walls were smooth and of the same red sand used by the termites throughout the stmcture, though evidently the wolves or some previous occupant had dug out or enlarged the cavity beneath the mound for their own use. The Reverend Singh, seeingthe interior of a wolf den for the first time, was surprised by 'The place was so neat that not even a how clean it was. piece of bone was visible anywhere, much less any evidence of their droppings and other uncleanliness. The cavehad a peculiar smell, peculiar to the wolves - that was all.'e Dibakar, who had more experiencein these matters' explained that wolves always voided their excretions outside the den and that when they were cubs the mother would lick up their faecesand urine until they were housetrained; but in the caseof the human children he could only venture a guess.It was not an important question, but like a thousand others that came to mind, many of which they had already discussed for long hours and would continue to dq so for years to come' it was unanswerable. They were looking at the only material evidence of the children's life among the wolves, an empty hollow that gave away no searets.In a few days even the smell would have disappeared.The other witness, perhaps the only one who could have provided them with some explanation,still jerked a little asthe Lodhas retrievedtheir valuable arrows from her carcass. The bravest among the Santal beaters approached circumspectly to examine the captured ghosts, poking at the white bundles with the buta of their bamboo spears' but retreating in alarm as soon as the matted balls of hair began to twist and turn about and they saw the bared teeth and rolling eye-whites of their former tormentors.

Some expressedzurprhe that the cxeature were so small and not half-beast as they had been led to expect, To others this was only natural since they were bhuts, the spirits ofchildren who had died before the initiation cere mony of.chatiar. It is through chatiar that a child becomes a member of Sanal society: without initiation the dead cannot achievethe full status ofa bongaryirit and therefore may not be offered sacrifices at the fltmily altars by their relations. For the Santals, who seethe afterworld in terms of relationships with their ancestors and descendants, becominga bhut, a spirit outcast condemnedto haunt the forests,an evil being that preys on mortal men, is the worst fate that could befall anyone. They regarded the two creatureswrapped in the gelopswith ineffable horror; it made no differencethat the spirits had evidently materialized and beenrenderedharmless;many would not go near them, while others wanted them destroyed. Ignoring these requests for retribution, the Reverend Singh paid offthe diggers,took chargeof the children and the wolf-cubs and returned to Denganalia,where he was promptly hailed by'the villagers as their deliverer. After taking obligatory refreshment with the headman, he managedto procure two bamboocages,to which he transfered his captives,paralysedwith fear and offering litde resistance,under the gazeof the equally frightened but curious crowd that had gatheredround the bullock carts. By the early afternoon the party was ready to move on to Amardavillage,sometwo miles distant, where Singh, Rose and Richards had arranged to stay the night at the dak bungalow. The chophidar, Mr Mahato, and his son, Ghambir, greetedthem enthusiastically,for the Reverend Singh wasa frequent and popular visitor. He usedAmarda as a centrefor his missionarytours in that areaand always stayedat the bungalow, a comfortable stone building, set upon a hillock overlooking an old Hindu temple on the edge of a large tank. Formetly a hunting lodge of the Maharaiah it was on a grander scale than most dak 68

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bungalows and, in co{rtrast to the simplicity of Chunarem's cowshed and similar accommodation which they had had to put up with over the last ten days,the Reverend Singh and his friends found it a welcome change. Aftet giving thanksto God for His greatmercy in helping them to rescuethe children, the three men rested up for a while. Sitting out on the veranda in planters' chairs, carefully arrangedfor their occupants'enjoymentofthe view ofthe temple and banyan tree rrflected in the silver waters of the ank and the smoky-green line of jungle beyond, they drank sweet milky tea brought to them by Mr Mahato and Ghambir, whom Reverend Singh chaffed gently as he alwaysdid about becominga Christian, promising him a good maniage with a beautiful girl if he took the plunge. The chowkidarand his son, however, were more interested in hearing about the creatureson the back ofthe bullock cart, which had been left in the stables,closely guarded over by Karan Hansda and Janu Tudu. Already a small crowd had gathered at the bottom of the hill by the bungalow gate, anxious to see the mysterious ghosts the shikaris had brought out of the iungle. News of their capture had travelled before them, and here perhapsthe Reverend Singh had his first taste of the inconvenience and evendangerwhich publicity could cause.Only a select few, among them the village sardar, Kalandi Saranji, who had arrived rather more promptly than usual to pay his customary respects to the padre, were allowed to satisfy their curiosity. After they had gone an attempt was made under Singh's supervision to bathe the children. Their bodies were encrusted with dirt and mud, smelt strongly of the wolves' den and appearedfrom their scratchingto be full of fleas and other parasites.But the operation was not a success.The children reacted violently to being touched or to any contact with water. What dirt could be removed revealeda large number of small scars and scratchesall over their bodies, and on their elbows, knees and the

heels of their hands, heavy callouses- presumably from going on all fours. Although thin, they were otherwisein good condition and apart from their matted hair, long nails that curled over like blunted talons and an inability or unwillingness to stand, they appearedat first physically no different from other human children. They were both girls, one agedabout three yearsold and the other perhaps five or six; the Reverend Singh would sometimes change this estimate, but the consensusheld to a two- or three yeat agediference. They seemedvery small to those who saw them at this stage, perhaps smaller than their actual size becausethey were constantly in a crouched position, but they could be picked up and carried in the arms without difficulty. There was a reluctance, however, to handle them for fear of being bitten or scratched, since it was consideredmore than likely that the children were rabid. At the time this may have seemed the most charitable explanation of their wild appearanceand ferocious behaviour, which in apposition to a completely blank expressionwhen their faceswere in repose,might otherwise be seen to divorce them from the order of human beings. Later that night there was a small celebration at the bungalow, attended by Dibakar, Bhanj Deo and Mr Pattanaik, and some say the Maharajah himself, who supposedlycame over from Baripada to see the children and reward the Reverend Singh for catching them; but there is little evidenceto support a royal visit. What is more certain is that the hunters enioyed an excellent dinner prepared by the Mahatos and afterwards sat long at table in the bungalow's high-ceilinged dining-room, alking over the day's events. On everyone'smind was the questionof how the children ever came to be with the wolves. Dibakar and Mr Pananaik had already made some inquiries among the villages, starting with Denganalia, to find out if any children had been lost in the last five vears. or stolen by

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wild animals, but there had been no positive response. The Reverend Singh suggestedthat the girls might have been deliberateb abandoned and later picked up by the wolves in the forest, which meant that no one would dare come forward to claim them. Exposure among the Santals was extremely rare but some other tribes in Mayurbhani still practised it and, although the children were clearly of aboriginal descent, there was no guarant€e that they were Santals.Aaother possibility, suggestedby Dibakar, was that the children came from farther afield,evenas far as thirty or forty miles away, since wolves in some cases were known to range over a wide territory. The question of their provenance was also complicated by the inability of the people from Denganalia, Godamuri and other villages where the story of the ghosts was known, to associatethem with real children or even with real wolves. The saga of the she-wolf, for insance, who had zuffered the loss of her cubs five years ago in the forest near Denganalia was not mentioned by the villagers because it did not seem relevant. Around the dinner table, however, the theory was put forward that a she-wolf who had lost her cubs might have stolen a child, left alone by its mother while working in the fields or gathering roots in the forest,as a replacementfor her own and taken it back to her lair and suckled it. Alternatively she could have stolen the child for food, a common enoughoccurrencein iungle districts, only neglectedto kill it beforereachingthe den, where its scent had become confused with that of her cubs, encouraging her to accept it as one ofher litter. The problem wascomplicatedby there being two children. The girls, who did not appear to be sisters, were separated by an age gap oftwo or three years,which suggestedthat the wolf had taken them probably from different places and almost certainly on different occasionslin other words, the wolf had repeated its experiment in fostering. The possibilities seemedalmost infinite. But all were agreed on one thing - if they had not been acquainted with the

evidence at fust hand, they would have found it unbelievable. Although it is not known for sure whether the Reverend Singh and his companionshad heardor read about children being raised by wolves, other than in Kipling and mythology, it seemslikely that at least one of them would have done so. As recently as rgr2 a caseofa wolfboy had been reported in the Calcutta Statesman and a number of popular bookson hunting and jungle life in India contained accounts and references to children being raised by wild animals.Sincethe appqrance of Mowgli in l9o5 the suh. iea had enioyed a revival of interest, but its appeal had always rested on unsubstantiated stories rather than facl To be confronted by the reality of wolf children was as surprising and as shocking as if the phenomenon had never been heard of before, and everyone according to his lights was feeling unsetded and perplexed by what had happened.The Reverend Singh, a little pompously perhaps, tried to put the case for divine intervention, firstly in the original rescue of the children by the wolves (for he stuck to his theory of abandonment), and then again in what they themselves had achieved that day the return of two of God's children to the human fold. His prayer of thanksgiving was ioined in by all as they tried to ignore the long drawn-out howling that came intermittently from the direaion of the stables. Later the rnen went outside on to the veranda to smoke a pipe in the cool night air. Below them the moon, reflected in the glassy waters of the tank, seemedto tremble to the distant pulse of the Santal drums that drifted up from the jungle, celebratingno doubt the capture ofthe ghosts.From the stablesthe howling continued unabated, each cry beginning on a hoarseand mournful note, and ending up with a shrill, high-pitched wail, not altogether like the howl of a wolf and yet not remotely the cry of a child. They tried to compare the sound with what some imagined were the answering calls of wolves from the iungle, but then Diba-

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kar pointed out that they had been listening to jackals, and soon after the party went back inside and broke up for the night. From the moment he fust sighted the children through Mr Rose's field-glass as they emerged from the white-ant mound, the Reverend Singh had never been in any doubt that it was his duty to rescue them. Although he would come to question the wisdom of this course in futurc yearq wondering if they might not have been happier left alone, regretting particularly the slaying of the mother wol{, he was quite certain at this time that he had taken the right decision.Indeed, it is hard to imaginein the circumstances how anyone in his position could have done otherwise. He wasequally cerain of his responsibilityfor the children now that they had beencaptured.His intention had always been to take them back to the orphanage with him, but immediately this presenteda logistical problem since he was due in Midnapore on 2r October to perform the important christening of one of the European officials' children. Three days did not give him enough time to return by bullock cart, which meant he would have to take the train and leave the children and the bullock carts to be btought back by Janu Tudu and Karan Hansda. For obvious reasonshe did not want to subject them to the train journey, but he was also doubtful that he could trust even Janu and Karan with two such unpredictable charges over the long road home to Midnapore. Finally, he decided to leave them for a few days in the care of Chunarem at Godamuri and as soon as possible to return and fetch them back himself. The next morning he delivered them to their new keeper and after helping him to construct a barricade of sal poles in the corner ofhis courtyard, making a squareofroughly eight feet, they releasedthe children from their cageinto this makeshift pen. Chunarem was given careful instruotions on how to look after them. For food and drink two small earthenwarepots) one containing rice, the other

water, were placed on the inside of the barricade so that they could be replenishedwhenevernecessaryfrom without. Although the children had as yet shown no interest in either eating or drinking, it was thought that as soon as they recovered from the shock of capture, hunger and thirst would assert themselves in the normal way. The Reverend Singh saw no cause for alarml the children, if sornewhat cowed, seemedhealthy enough and C.hunarem and his wife, who appeared to have recovered from their earlier terror of the manush-bagha,gave their word that they would care for them as though they were their own. With such an assurance,the padre left Godamuri to catch the train at Amarda Road and, accompanied by Rose and Richards, returned that afternoon to Kharagpur. Within five days he was back at Amarda, where he was met by Karan Hansda and Janu Tudu with the news that the children were in a desperateplight. He set off at once for Godamuri and found the village almost deserted, Terror ofthe ghostshad taken hold onceagain.Chunarem and his family had panicked soon after he had left the children at his houseand abandoningthem without food or water had gone away to another village, no one knew where. 'I found the situation very graver' Singh wrote in his journal, 'but did not wait or indulge in that thought for long, but made for the barricadeot once, broke open the sal props, and found the poor children lying in their own mess, panting for breath, through hunger, thirst and fright. I really mourned for them and actually wept for my negligence.I sprinkled cold water on their faces.They openedtheir mouths; I poured water in and they drank. I took them up in my ailns one by one and carried them to the bullock cart.'lo The immediate probem was how to feed the children. 'They would not receive anything into their mouths. I tried by syphon action. I tore up my handkerchief and rolled it up into a wick. I dipped it in the tea cup; and when it was well soaked, I put one end into their mouths and

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the other end remained in the cup. To my geat surprise I found them sucking the wick like a baby. I thanked God most fervently for the great kindness in forgiving me my negligencein leaving the children under such care.'rl It is difficult to understand why Janu and Karan, who had looked after the wolfcubs in the back ofthe bullock cart, could not alsohavekept watch on the children during Singh's absence.The same might apply to Bhagobhat Khatua, who 'would certainly have made a more reliable guardian than Chunarem, but his movements after the capture are not known. Possibly they were.all involved in some other work for Singh; or he may have thought it unnecessaryto tell them to keep an eye on things; or again he nay have been covering up for tlrem and taking responsibility for their negligence as well as what he recognized as his own. One can only speculate.More certain is that if they had come any later they would have found the children dead. fu it was they had to remain in Godamuri for severaldays nursing them back to hedth on a diet of milk, until the padre considered them strong enough to travel. The iourney back to Midnapore, with frequent halts on the way to rest the children, took more than eight days. Even so the constantiostling and lurching of the bullock cart did nothing to improve their condition, and they remained weak and unable to move. fn some ways this was all to the good, since it meant tlat they did not have to be confinedto their cageand could lie on a pile of rice straw in the back of the cart. When they finally reached Tantigoria on 4 November and pulled up in front of the gates of 'The Home', after nineteen days of captivity the children were so emaciated, feeble and wretchedlooking that no one could have told anything from their appearance of their extraordinary background. As the Reverend Singh had already explained to Janu Tudu, whom they had left in Chainsole, and now told Karan Hansda and Bhagobhat Khatua, the two girls had been

found abandonedby them in Santaliaand as far as the world neededto be concernedthey werethe neglectedoffspringof mendicantfakirs.He wasdeterminedthat thetrue story of their capturefrom wolvesin the jungle should remaina secret,hopingtherebyto protectthem and himself from the unwelcomecuriosity, sensationalismand gossipwhichin a smalltown like Midnaporewouldotherwiseshadowtheir lives.After prayerson theeveningofhis return in which he agan gavethanks to God for the rescueandsafehomecomingofthe children,the Reverend Singhtook his wife into his confidence,impressingon her the needfor total secrecy.Mrs Singh gaveher word and xxasto keep her promise faithfully. Others, however, wouldnot find it so easyto resistthe telling of a goodif improbable story, and the children themselveswould recoyersoonenoughto providetheunmistakable evidence.

ChapterFow

During their first few days at the orphanage,the wolf girls were kept apart from the other children in a dark outhouse adloining the residential quarters of 'The Home'. Mrs Singh attended to them herself and allowed none of the orphanage servants to go near them. They were given charpoys to lie on and blankets to cover them at night for by now the weather had turned chilly, but in spite of their general debility they reieaed both, prefening to sleep on the floor on rice-straw. They showed no sign of feeling the cold, they neither shivered nor huddled together for warmth except when sleeping, and immediatd tore off any clothes or covering they were made to wear. Mrs Singh, who considered it important that they should get used to wearing clothes as soon as possible,had the idea of tying loin-cloths around their waists with a detachable flap that passedbetween the legs, serving also as a nappy, and stitching them in place. They were unable to free tlemselves from these 'langotis'and made litde attempt to do so until they recovered their strength, when the constant irritation of unaccustomed clothing would keep them busy for hours on end trying to reach their own and sometimes the other's and worry at them with teeth and nails until they had torn them off. In the meantime they lay in the straw completely inactive, except for their feeble eforts to escapewhen Mrs Singh carneto feed them. They showed their fear of both her and the Reverend Singh and their dislike ofbeing pattedor strokedby drawing back their lips from their teeth and growling, but more often than not they acceptedthe milk ofered them. Apart from

water it was their only sustenanceand had to be given in a baby's bottle since they were still roo weak to tate it in any other way. As the daysturned into weeksthe health ofthe children began to cause the Singhs grave concern. Not only were they recoveringstrengthmore slowly than had beenhoped, but they had both developeda large number of soresall over their bodies,which the ReverendSingh attributed to the filth in which they had been left lying in Chunarem's courtyard. As he recorded: 'These sores ate up the big and efiensive corns on the knee and on the palm of the hand near the wrist which had developedfrom walling on all fours. The soreshad a very fearful appearanceand went deep into the flesh . . . Besides attacking the knee and the palm, they extended to foot, elbow and ankle. It was a dreadful sight to see.'lInsteadofcalling in the doctor right awaS which they fearedwould lead to.the exposureof the rescue story, the Singhs began by treating the children themselves,washingthe soreswith carbolicsoapand lotion and bandagingthem with boric cotton. As soonas granulations beganto form they used iodine, zinc and boric acid and the sores gradually healedup over a period of about three weeks, though in the case of the elder girl they would come back severalyearslater, which suggests,since there was no questionofeither girl being leprous,that the complaint may have had more to do with diet than sanit+ tion. About ten daysafter their arrival at the orphanage,when the children became strong €nough to sit up and crawl about a little, they were given solid food consistingofrice and vegetablesand a little meat, servedon a plate and left on the floor of the room, but after sniffing carefully at the food they showed no interest in eatrng, preferring to stay with milk and water, which they now lapped noisily from a bowl. The two wolf-cubs, who had been kept in their original cage, were still young enough to zurvive on milk alone, but the children, it was felt, neededsomething more

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substantial. All attempts to make them eat, however, failed until one afternoon they were taken out into the courtyard at the time when the orphanagedogs were being fed - coincidentally,it appears,though the ReverendSingh must have been interested to seehow they would act in the presence of animals. He tried to prevent both children from going near the dogs for fear that they would be harmed, but only managed to restrain the younger girl; tle elder was too fierce and threatened him when he tried to control her. Showing no fear, although the dogs who could be quite ferociousat feeding time were squabbling among themselvesand fighting over scraps,she went up to them and after submitting to their investigation of her scent and one orrtwo stiFtailed attempts to drive her off, joined in their dinner of meat, offal and bones.Astonished by the way the dogs seemedto recognize the child as one of them, as much as by the eagernessand complete lack of inhibition she displayed in going among them, Singh watched as the girl, on bandaged knees and elbows, darting glancesaskanceat her new companionsrnilling around her, lowered her face to the dog bowl, seizedher food and bolted it with convulsive shakesof her upper body, keephg her headcloseto the ground. She secureda Iarge bone and carried it off in her mouth to a corner of the yard away from the others, where she soon settled down, holding it under her handsas ifthey werepaws,and began to gnaw at it, occasionally rubbing it along the ground to help separatethe meat from the bone. Observing her behaviour with fascinated horror, shocked by so strong a reaffirmation of the instincts and habits she and the younger girl had no doubt acquired from the wolves, Singh was forced to faceup to the reality of the children's true condition and wants. Although he could guesswhat their diet had beenin the forest, during their illnesshe had perhapsdeludedhimself in thinking that on recoverythey would lose some of their wolfish traits. He felt that this should be encouraged by trying to treat them as near as

possiblelike normal human children, by making thern wear clothes, by talking to them (akhough they had no speech and gave no sign of understanding what was being said), by showing them affection and by feeding them on a conventional diet. It was a policy that he would never abandon despiteconstant setbacks;but he understoodnow that, if the children wene to survive, they would have to be fed on raw meat. On Wednesdayz4 November, the girls were thought strong enough to be given a proper bath. Although this did not include total immersion they resisted fiercely and had to be held down while water was poured over them and Mrs Singh soapedand scrubbed them down, taking care to avoid their sores.After bathing the children's long claw-like fingernails were cut; their toe nails, worn down from dragging their feet along the ground when going on all fours, were ffimmed; and the matted balls of hair, which contributed not a little to the wildness of their appearance, were shaved off. The Reverend Singh was pleased to not€ that for ttre first time they almost looked like ordinarychildren and his wife, who had beenconsidering what to call them, now suggestedtwo Bengali names - Kamala,which means'lotus', for the elder; and Amala, 'a bright yellow flower', for the younger girl. Although the names may have seemeda little ironical there was no question of calling them by anything that would draw attention to their background.The appellation'wolf girl' was avoided,if indeed the Singhs were familiar with it there is some evidenc€to suggestthat at this stage they were not. With the cutting of their hair the diference in appearancebetweenthe two children emergedmore clearly. Although both had the flat nosesand large nostrils, high cheek-bones, thick lips and bushy eyebrows of the aboriginals,Kamala, the older girl, had a proportionately smaller head with a round face, little deep-seteyes and rather squashedfeatures.Amala, though there is no very revealing photograph of her, s€emsto have had a more

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finely etched face, oval in shape, with a more pointed chin and a zufficiendy different look about her to convince those who saw both children together that they were not of the sarnefamily. As to their tribal origins, nobody could be sure, but it was agreedthat probably they were Santals or belongedto one of the related Munda-speakingtribes. The most interesting aspects of their appearancewere undoubtedly those where it was suggestedthat modification had uken place as a result of their living among the wolves. One has to take into account, however, that in his amateur and sometimesfanciful observationsof the children, the ReverendSingh may have confused purely physical description with his impressionsand interpretations of their behaviour.For instance,he describedtheir iaw-bonesas'raised and high . . . Asiatic, no doubt, to all different . . . the jawshad underappearancebutsomewhat gone some soft of change in the chewing of bones and constant biting of the meat attached to the bone. When they moved their jaws in chewing, the upper and lower jaw-boneappearedto part and closevisibly, unlike human jaws . . . When they used to chew anlthing very hard, such as a bone this separationof the jaw-bone was very distinct. Such chewing causedvisible hollows at both ends of the iaw-boneson both sidesof the cheek.'2Possiblythe effect was caused by some unusual development in the musculature of the iaw-bone, but it is not dimcult to imagine how the sight of a six-year-old child attacking a large, meaty bone with the practised skill of a wolf might makeonethinkthatthestructureof the jaw itself hadsomehow become adapted to the child's unusual eating habits. The same goes for Singh's description of the children's eye-teeth, which he claimed were longer and more pointed than normal, although human canines, especially milk canines, are not known to grow beyond occlusal level. Other witnesseshavesaid that their teeth were very sharp, which Singh also noted. This more than likely was true, but they denied that the canines were particularly

prominent, or as the padre observed, that the colour of the inside of their mouths was blood red. The earsofthe children he consideredto be particularly large and they do in fact appear so from the earliest photographs, though in Kamala's casethey seem to have grown smaller as she grew olderl but here again the ears may have appearedlarger to the observer's eyesto explain their unusually powerful senseof hearing which, as Singh records, enabledthem to detect the smallestsound - for example, of approaching footsteps - which drew their attention long before it was picked up by anybody else. When the children became excited for any reason, their ears and lips would tremble and they would pump out breath through their nostrils, making a harsh noise; along with their habit of dilating and contracting their nostrils when investigating a scent and sniffing rapidly at the same time, this no doubt led Singh to remark that their nasal ' openingswere much largerthan ordinarily found in men'.3 From the photographic Evidenceit was hardly apparent. Unfortunately Singh's tendency to exaggerateis common to all his writing. His letters and reports, written in the convoluted and extravagantstyle of Indian English, are full of hyperbole and (particularly in any religious context) histrionic inflation. The fault may be recognized and acceptedfor what it reveals- an inadequatecommand of the language, compounded by a certain cultural and, in Singh's case,characteristic need to make things out to be a little bit more important, more beautiful, more significant, more noble and more tragic than they really were. It is scarcely recommendation for a witness, yet in his logging of the wolf children's capture and progress,he seemsfor the most part to have made a consciouseffort to appear restrained, concise and, to the best of his ability, objective. The children were not deformed in any way and despite their emaciated condition the build of their bodies suggested strength and agility. They had short muscular

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necks, broad shoulders, flat hips and slender waists that were peculiarly flexible from side to side. Only their arms and, in Kamala's case,hands also from wrist to fingertips, appearedto fhe Reverend Singh somewharawkward and perhaps longer than usual. Unfortunately he took no measurements for comparison. Yet they could neither walk nor stand on two feet and, as a consequenceofgoing on all fours, it seems, the ioints of the wrists, elbows, knees and ankles had grown unusually thick and strong. When lifted off the ground from under the arms their legs remained benr at the knee and at the hip joints, which unlike the ioints of the elbow and wrist had lost the ability to straighten out or make flexible movements beyond a certain angle. Going on all fours, they had three different styles of locomotion, either crawling on kneesand elbows, which gave them the use of their hands (though this was limited to paw-like actions); or more often on kneesand handsin the manner of a nine-month-old baby; or running with their bodiesin a raisedposition on hands and feet. This last method allowedthem to move very fast, as Singh would discover later. Observing Kamala running around with the dogs in the courtyard, he noted in close detail this more rapid mode of progression,with .head erect on the broad shoulders,the body straight, resting on the hip joints; the thigh making an obtuseangle with the leg at the knee and the leg resting on the raised heel; and the front part of the foot resting on the ground with the toes spread out to support the whole weight of the body. The front part ofthe body rested on the straightened hand, supported by the spread-out palm and fingers on the ground.'4 Whether crawling or running on all fours, the hands were never bunched into fists but always opened out, palms and fingers flat. Their toes, however, particularly the big toe, when the foot was placed flat on the ground, stood up at an angle. When they ran along in this way, whether slowly or fast, theconsecutiveierlsoftheheadandthen the hindquarters

rising and falling alternatively, made a sort of undulating movement, which the Reverend Singh compared to the action of a squirrel, especially when they were going at top speed. The progression of limbs, however, was mol€ like that of a genuhe quadruped than a squirrel's: 'At first the left hand was raised and placed on the ground, and immediately the right foot was similarly raised and placed on the ground, and then the right hand and immediatelythe Ieft foot were raised and placed.In this way it wasnoticedthat wheneverany hand or foot wasraisedin progressionthe arm blade or the thigh blade, respectively, wasdepresseda litde, but when running fast nothing could be seen. f qmnot say tlrat the progression was by leaping, but it was a motion of the whole body in a ma$s.t5

Not long after the incident with the dogs Kamala and Amala were moved from the dark and rather airless outhouse to a special enlarged cage, which the Reverend Singh had constructed for them out of wood and wire netting in a corner of his office. The immediateadvantage of the move was that the children would now be close at hand for care, observation and, most important of all, increased human contact. It was part of the long-term plan to bring them graduallyinto the life ofthe orphanage, so that dventually they would be able to ioin rhe other children as ordinary inmates, for neither the padre nor Mrs Singh had any doubt at this stage that Kamala and Amala would regain their human faculties, temporarily eclipsed, as they believed, by habits acquired in the wild. The ReverendSingh's office wasa long, narrow, whitewashedroom with a plain classicalmoulding and a high ceiling supportedby iron beamsand woodencrossbatens. Two doors under ersatz roman arches on the same wesr wall connectedit with the drawing-room and the Singhs' bedroom.The furniture consistingof a desk, chaiq boob caseand bed (sometimesused by Singh or by guests) had 84

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been rearranged to make room for the cage, which was placed so that it received maximum light from the only window set high in the north wall. The children, however, always sat in the darkest corner and when the winter zun streamed into the room, illuminating the floor of the cagg they made every effort to avoid its rays. The Reverend Singh was aware of their fear of light; although difficuh at first to distinguish from their greater terror of hurran beings, it had become apparent soon aftet their capture. A' match struck in their presence or a hurricane lamp brought into the room, even when they had been too weak to move, produced signs of alarm - one of the few eme tions their static features could register, or at least, which could be recognized by humans - and as they became stronger they showed an intense desire to get as far as possiblefrom any sourceoflight. Fear registered chiefly in their eyes, which during the day were always heavy as if with sleep, often half-lidded; at night when they becarne generally more active, their eyes would be open wide, alert and piercingly brighr This brightness was noticed by a number of those who saw the children at the orphanageat a later stage in their lives, but the Reverend Singh also recorded a more remarkable phenomenon, claiming that sometimes at night a peculiar bluish glare could be seen in their eyeq similar to the reflection in the eyes of cats and dogs and certain other animals. It was first observed by Singh during their illness, when 'they could not bear the presenceof any light in the sick room ... so the light used to be kept at the door keeping them in the shade. They used to crawl into tlle darkest corner of the room to avoid even the faint light. On such occasions when we used to approach thern in the room, we noticed that as soon as they turned towards us, the shape of the bodies used to disappear showing only two faint blue lights in proportion to the strength of the light then emitfing.'6 Singh seemsto have believed somewhat noively that dre

glare actuallyemanatedfrom their eyesand stateselsewherein apparentcontradictionthat it could not be seen when therewasa light in the room.However,if oneakes the analogyofa cat'seyes,it is light falling on them at a certainanglethat producesa reflectionwhich canbe seen These,indeed,arethecondiagainstanunlit background. tions that perain in the descriptionabove.The phenomenon, which Singh linked to the children's undoubted ability at that time to seebetter at night than by day, and becamelessthe longerthey remainedat the orphanage gradually adapted themselvesto a diurnal pattern of existence.Whenthe storyof the wolf childrenreachedttre outsideworld sornetwenty yearslater, the detail of the 'blue glare',thoughtfancifuland unconvincingby some anddownrightimpossibleby others,remainedat thecentre of the feral controversy,although Singh would always on his defendhis claim,stronglydenyinganyexaggeration part, In the meantimehe sawthe importanceof getting the children accustomedto living by day and subjected them, perhapscruellyat first, to the harshbrightnessthat camein throughhis officewindowin an attemptto break the influenceand rhythmsof night. They slept litde, either by dayor at night, thoughthey would lie down for an hour or two at about midday and wereoften caughtdozingwhile sitting in a corner.In the wild their sleeping habits would probably have been determinedby how often they ate - wolvesusually rest and sleepfor long periodsafter gorgingthemselveson a kill - but the ReverendSingh doesnot mentionwhether Kamalaand Amala slept after being fed, only that they restedsometimesin the late evening when presumebly theyhadjust hadtheir mainmeal.Singhis reticentabout at this stage,possiblybecause their feedingarrangements of the taboothat surroundsthe eatingof raw meatandthe ferociousandunnervingdisplaywhich the childrenPut on while devouringtheir food. JageswarKhatua, however, the son of Bhagobhat,who was still boarding at the 86

orphanagewhenthechildrenwerebroughtin, remembers that they werefed on alternatedays.Whenthey did sleep, it wasusuallylying oneon'toPof theother,likepuppiesin a litter, althoughduring their illnessand whentheir sores were causing them serious discomfort they lay apart. Kneeswerealwayspulled up to the chest,evenwhenthey slepton their backs,andtheir handsandfeetwerebrought together,as if they were crouchingwhile lying on their sides.They werenoisysleepers,snoring,grunting,grinding their teeth and at times giving litde cries, but they sleptlightly and the leastsoundawokethem. At any hint ofdanger they wereinstantlyalert, thoughgenerallythey did not come alive until iust before dusk, when they showedsignsofresdessnessand wanting to get out into the open. Singh deducedfrom this behaviourthat they wereaffectedby the zunsetand that the reddishcolourof the eveningsky seenthrough the windowof his office,as it might havebeenthrough the mouth of their den in the jungle, wasthe signalfor them to set out on the prowl. enoughassumPIf a little picturesque,it wasa reasonable tion for a man who had only basic zoologicalknowledgewith which to interpretthebehaviourof rwohuman beingswhosereflexesand reactionswere predominantly animal. After midnight the children neverslept and wereconstantly on the move,prowling around,pacingto and fro, whetherin their cage,the outhouseor in the yard where they were taken for exercise.Sometimesat night they howled.The first time it happenedat the orphanagewas on the night of ro December,soonaftertheyhadrecovered from their illness. 'This cry was a peculiarone,' Singh wrotein his diary. 'It beganwith a hoarsevoiceandended in a thrilling shrill wailing, very loud and continuous.It had a piercing note of a very high pitch. It was neither humannor animal.I presunedit wasa call to their companions,thewolvesor thecubs. . . intendedto makethem But the cubs in their cage 87 awareof their whe.reabouts.'7

near by were too young to answer, though they would whimper and scratch at the barb of their cage in recognition of the children's voices. 'There was a difference of pitch in the fio voices - Karnala's was stronger and bolder, more sharp and shrill. Amala's was weaker,changefuland thinner. But both had a fine thrill ofreverberating notes, very high and piercing. It could be heard from a good distance, and more so on a still night when everyone was asleepand no other sound was audible except the screecb ing of the owl, the chirping of some night bird and the soundsof the animals prowling in searchof prey or drink.'8 The howling always started by Kamala, though Anala would sometimes go on after the elder girl had stopp€d, continued at intervals through the night, and for a while the same pattern would be repeated almost every night until it gradually grew less regular, later becorning only an occasionaloudet for whatever emotion it expressed.They always howled at night, never during the day, and to begin with the noise alarmed everyone at the orphanage: the children had to be comforted, and the servants,from whom some explanation of the girls' behaviour (not necessarily the right one) could no longer be kept, were given strict otders not to talk about it in the bazaar.Ifanyone from the near-by village of Tantigoria askedabout the howling, they were to say it was one of the dogs or the wolf-cubs tJre padre-sahib had bought from the Santals, or else iackals in the field behind the house. The problem of kerping the wolf children a secret was becomingmore and more difficult. The Singhs'own children had come back home for their Christmas holidays; Daniel from a boarding school in Darjeeling and the two girls, Preeti Lota and Buona Lota, from St John's Diocesan School in Calcutta; and naturally they wanted to lnow about the strange creatures being kept in a wire cage in their father's office; especiallyafter Preeti Lota had been bitten on the hand while attempting to pet Kamala. In due course they were told by their mother at leest enough to

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satisfy their curiosity, but the story ofthe children's capture from wolves was probably withheld. The sametactics were used on other visitors to the orphanageincluding thc family physician, Dr Sarbadhicari, a frequent caller, whose advice had finally been sought in the treatment of the sores. Although it is not known what explanation was given to Dr Sarbadhicari for the children's, to say the least, unusual condition and behaviour, it appearsto have satisfied him. According to the Reverend Singh it would be another ten months before the Doctor would find out from him the true story of their provenance, but in that time many others would come to know at least a part of the truth from a different source. In their endeavour to protect Kamala and Amala from the curious and at the same time develop their human potentiel, the Singhs had to face frequent dilemmas and even contradiction in the methods they employed. It was not always easy to know what to do and, although in his diary the Reverend Singh describes the procedure as straightforward and simple, it was more a reflection of his own optimism than an accurate depiaion of the cornplex pmblems they faced. To take a scatological example, now that the two girls were recovered from their illness it seerned advisable that they should be taken out as fte quendy and regularly as possible, not only for fresh air and exercise,but in the interest of hygiene. At the moment they urinated and defecated whenever and wherever they felt like it; they had no notion of wiping themselvesotler than by occasionally rubbing their bottoms along the ground as dogs will - this may have had as much to do with local irritation caused by worms, as a desire to get cleanl and had to be washedby Mrs Singh, which they suongly resented and tried to resist with growling scratching and teeth-baring. But if they were allowed out three times a day, morning, noon and evening, it was felt that they would acquire, witl appropriate scoldings and prahe (both quite meaningless to the wolf children), the

habit of emptying their bowels outside the house. However, this presented some dilficulty. If they were walked in the garden or the field behind the orphanageduring the day - naked, on all fours and with a rope around their waists to prevent them trying to run away, or making off to hide under the nearestbush, for they did not like to be out in the open during daylight - there was the constant danger of their being seen and attracting attention. At night, ofcourse, it was safer and, as the Reverend Singh soon found out, the children were more likely to respond 'the calls of to what he termed, appropriately enough, nature' after darkl for in the wild he presumed'that the whole night they used to prowl about outside the caveand used to finish everything during that period, and came back in the caveto rest the whole day there'.eBut it was precisely this, their habituation to a nocturnal existence, that he wanted to break, and yet here he was encouraging it. At length a compromise was reached whereby the children were taken out into the courtyard during the day and into the gardensand field under the cover of nightl but their excretory habits did not change and if, as sometimes happened, they were left in at night, they made no attempt to hold out until the next morning. Arother instance of the difrculties the Singhs had to contend with can be found in their attempts to bring the children into contact with the other inmates of the orphanage. At this stage, two months after their capture' there was still little sign of progress in Kamala and Amala's behaviour. Their reaction to any attempt at fraternizing by either children or adults was either to put on a threateningdisplay or elseto hide away in a corner of their cage and refuse to look round, as if the very sight of human beingswas obnoxiousto them.'The presenceof others in the room preventedthem from doing anything even moving their head from one direction to the other, or moving about a little, changing sides, or turning about. Even a look towards them was obiectionable. They wanted

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to be all by themselves,and they shunned human society altogether.'loOn the other hand they had showninterestin the orphanage dogs and, on the rare occasionswhen they were allowed to see them, in the wolf-cubs, whose company (along with that of the wolves left behind in the forest of Denganalia) the Reverend Singh believed they sorely missed. But the symptoms of their disness - the howling, sniffing the ground and searching the corners oftheir cage or room - might equally have been a protest against captivity and a reconnaissancefor escape.The purpose of keeping the wolf-cubs separatefrom the children was to destroy the bonds of their former association.Less clear is why the cubs were retained in the first place, since no attempt was made to compare their behaviour with the children's, or make use of them for any other purpose; and, apart from the attentions of Daniel Singh on his return from school, they were generally neglected. Daniel, who was a keen animal lover, used to play with them for hours at a time and sometimes take them on leads to his father's office, which could be dependedupon to elicit a strong and amusing reaction from Kamala and Amala. The padre, afraid that his son might interpret correcdy the rapport that existed befween the cubs and the caged girls, ordered them to be taken out on the pretext that they were upsetting the children; but he had not failed to notice that Kamala and Amala's interest in the cubs had predominated, if only for a moment or tlvo, over their fear of Daniel. If this gave Singh the idea of using the cubs as a means of establishing a relationship with the children, it was over-ridden at this time by the considered danger of reviving the animal associationsof their life in the wild; besides which the cubs did not live long enough for any experiments to be carried out. However, they had already set in motion the long and awkward process by which, ironicallg their former den-mates would eventually regain some of their human faculties. The Singhs noticed that when Kamala and Amala were

hungry they would apprech the corner of the cageor room wheretheir food wasusualtyleft and sit there for sometime; then they would moveewayand return ag'aiq *{ So on doingthis, with Amalamakinglittle whining noisesand occasionallya 'hoo, hoo, sound (Kamalawas silent),until they weregivensomethingto eator drink. If the bowl or plate containingtheir food was put in an awkwardplace,high up on 8 table or chair,for instance, they would male considerableeffortsto reachit, standing on their knees,scrabblingand pushingat the bowl wirh tlreir noses. Their attitude towards eating remained ferocious;as soonas their food wasplaced before them they would smellit carefully,then plungetheir facesinto the bowl and with somewhatgrotesquesound efects and hjdeols grimaces,glimpsedwheneverthey lifted up their heads,bolt it down in a natter of seconds.yet, like rccalcitrantchildren, they alwaysleft the rice and vege ables that Mrs Singh had carefullymhed with the meat, exceptwhereparticleshad adheredto its raw and sticky srrfaces.Convincedthat the diet of r4w ment wascontributing to the children's fiercenessand making them more unmanageable, the Singhstried them with cooked meat and then a purely vegetabledieq but even when ryticeally hungry, after a preliminary sniffing investiga_ tion, neitherchild showedany inclinationto eai.Nonethetheir voraciousappetitefor raw meatwasa constant; fery indged,apartfrom the wolf-cubs,it wastheir only interest in life; and althoughit seemedto the Singhsalmosras retrogressive as allowingtlrem to associate with the cubs, meatwasthe mediumthrough which they choseto work 911"fo limited susceptibilities,wheneverythingelsehad friled. For sometime Mrs Singh had beenbringing groupsof theorphanage childreninto theofficeandtalkinganaiUying with themin front of KamalaandAmalain an anempt at drawing their attention. She would approachthem, point out somethingof interest- a chiH's rattle, a rag doli 92

or perhepsa flower- and, repeatingits narnooffer,it first to one of the children and then to the wolf girls. But neither of them showedthe slightest interest. As the ReverendSingh put it, 'They simply bestoweda forced look,asiflooking at nothing,andwouldquicklyturn their eyesagainto the cornerr'wheretheywouldcrouchtogether 'as if in a trance-likestatesometimesfor hours on end, rneditatingon somegteatproblem'.11Meanwhilethe other childrenwould be playrnggames,runningaboutthe roorn andmakinga lot of noise.KamalaandAmalacouldnot be distracted,but Mrs Singhfelt surethey werenonetheless

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aware of what was going on around them and were keeping a stealthy watch for any movement that might have been e sourceofdanger. Once when she brought in a tin of biscuits and distributed them among the children, she noticed that the wolf girls reactedto the sound ofthe children eating and caught them turning their heads to look" It was only for a second and then they turned away, but soon afterwards when rnore biscuits were given out they did it again. Mrs Singh approached the cage and offered the girls a biscuit each. They retreated showing ttreir teeth and averting their eyes. She left the biscuits on a low stool inside the cage and went away. The neft day the biscuits were still there. She repeatedthe experiment, only this time when Kamah and Amala again beuayed an interest in seeingthe children eating, shecameover to thern with two small chunks of raw meat instead of biscuits. Again she tried unsuccessfully to makethem take food from her hand, but as soon as she put the meat down on the stool and began to move away' they pounced on it and ate it up. From then on, each time they were offered meat in these circumstmces they would take it and, although the Singhs knew well enough they would accept meat in almost any cirquuuttances,the practice was continued for a time in the belief that at least somesort of link had been established bet\ryeenthe wolf children and other human beings. Any attempt, however, at zubstituting

t&emeatfor biscuie or inducingthem to takeit from the hand or in any way developingthis slendercontacr,met for the time beingwith conspicuous failure. The wolf-cubs were dead, their wastedbodies consignedby Daniel to the flamesof a funeral pyre on the rubbish heapin the field behind the house.But the Reverend Singh had not forgoften.Willing to try anything now, he allowedthe introductionof puppiesbelongingto one of the orphanagebitchesinto Kamala and Amala's cage.His earlierdoubtsaboutthe wisdomof encouraging their associationwith animals were overridden by the exigenciesof the situation, for understandablyhe was worried that the wolf children,like the cubs,would die of lonelinessthrough virtual isolation.Their reactionto the puppies was encouraging.They sniffed at them and allowedthemselvesto be sniffedat in return, bristling a little at first and showing their superionry by feigned indifference,but they madeno attemptto harmthemand toleratedtheir playful and unruly presencein the cage. The puppies were then removed and put th" "mong orphanagechildren,who weremadeto play with them in the sameroom, so that Kamalaand Amalacould seethat they had no fear of the children or the Sinshs. It was hopedby the puppies'exampleto createan intlrest on the wolf children'spart in associatingwirh humans.To begin with, the ReverendSingh's onglnalfearswereborne out and the girls, occupiedwith their new-foundcompanionq paid lessattentionthan ever to the other inmatesof the orphanage.But Mrs Singh persevered.Whether tle puppieswere around or not, as often as she could, she would sit by Kamalaand Amala'scage,usually with one or two of the youngerorphanagechildren on her lap or playingat her feet,and talk alternatelyto them and to the wolfgirls, asifthey, too, \ilerebabiesjustlgarningto talk and walk.Althoughtherewasno changein their behaviour shethen arrangedwith her husbandto let them comeout of the cageand spenda part of eachdayin ,The Home's' 94

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nursery quarteni, where the youngpst children were cared for. At some risk to herself and the babies, she redoubled her efforts to approach the wolf girls and talk and coax them into some sort of response,but as soon as she came near, Kamala and Amala would quickly move away and go to take up position in the opposite corner of the room. If she followed them they would move again to another corner, and so it went on, until they became irritated by 'game' the and showed their resentmentby baring their teeth and making a peculiar high-pitched growling noise. Then Mrs Singh would give up and sit with the babies and puppies in the middle of the room, going on talking and playing with them as if she had forgotten that the wolf girls were still there. Kamala and Amala remained indifferent, but now, wheneveroneofthe babiesor puppies crawled away from the central group around Mrs Singh or did anything unusual, they would quickly look round from their corner to see what was going on. Gradually they were becoming accustomed to the presenceof other children and, in the Singhs' estimation, beginning to rccognize perhaps that they were not so very different from tlemselves. The break-through, if it can be called that, came a few days before Christmas. One of the orphans, a litde boy of about a year old, called Benjamin, crawled over to the wolf children's corner and before anyone could stop him sat up beside them quite unconcerned. To Mrs Singh's surprise and relief, instead of moving away or trying to seehim ofi, even when he boldly reached out and touched them, they showed neither anger nor fear and remained where they were. It was the beginning of an associationwhich might be compared to the wolf children's relationship with the puppies: they toleratedBenjamin and allowedhim to come up to them whenever he felt inclined, though this favour was'not extendedto any of the other children. Why they had made an exception in Benjamin's case even the Reverend Singh was at a loss to say. However, Mrs Singh

wasfull of hopc that thc wolf children would learn from the boy, especiallyas he wasiust beginnhg to walk and makearticulatesoundsand, without forcing them to be together,she encouragedthe friendship. But about ten daysafter the initial contact,on 3r December,the wolf children suddenlyturned on Benjaminand savagedhim. just in time by thevigilantMrs Singh,but He wasrescued hadreceiveda sevef,e biting andscratchingandbeenbadly frightened.After that he neveragainmadeany attemptto approachthem. There was no apparentreasonfor the attack,thoughthe ReverendSingh believedthat'when they found somedifferenceand understoodthat he was quite differentin natureto them,then they commenced to dislikehim',12whichscarcelyratesasanexplanation.More likely KamalaandAmala,who by now hadfully recovered their strength,weresimply indulgingin a litde roughplay of the kind they must havebecomeaccustomedto while living with the wolves.Indeed, it is surprising that the instancedid not occur sooner.Ironically, it may have markedthe beginningof a fuller recognitionand trust of Beniamin,but it wasinterpreted,understandably enough, as reffogressivebehaviourand the two wolf girls wene confinedoncemoreto their cage. By the middle of January rgzr, almost three months after their capture,the Rwerend Singh was obliged to admit in his diary that the wolf children had madeno progresstowards thc recoveryof their human faculties and as yet shownnothing but aversionto humanbeings and their ways.He recognizedin their morose,apathetic behaviourthe repercussionsof complete disorientation and a desperatelonelinesswhich he interpreted rather romanticallyasa longingfor their formerlife in the iungle and the lost companionshipand protectionof the wolveg but whichtouchedhim deeplynonetheless. Yet neitherhc nor Mrs Singhgaveup hopeand at morningand evening prrlyers, togeth€r with the staff and children of the in tlrc unroofedchapelwhich g:rve 96 orphanageassctrrbled

on to the office where Kamala and Amala were caged,they asked God to speed their recovery. Sometimes durrng silent moments of devotion, the wolf girls could be heard ruking sorneinappropriate noise and inevitably the childrcn would dissolve into giggles, which earned them an rngry reprimand from the Reverend Singh and an extra prayer. But regardlessof their progrcss or lack of it, life at 'The Home', with all its little routines, visits, dutieg lessons and games, went on much as before. Although Mrs Singh devoted a considerabl€ amount of her time to tending the wolf children, the padre could not afford to neglect the obligations ofhis parish, or indeed ofthe sociel mund, where his presence at such functions as a tiffin party given by Mrs Cool the collector's wife, to iurang€ linen and clothing for the needy patients in hospital, or the Christmas Treag held in the Church compound for the poor children of the town" was thought by him at least to be indispensable.But out of deference,perhaps, to the wolf childrer5 that year he did not take part in the Midnapore Ztmlrn.dan C,ompany'sBoxing Day shoot.

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His parish work, as he explained at a meeting of the Diocesan Council in Calcutta later thet month, was at the present time unhappily restricted to preaching to the converted.The political agitation that prevailed acrossNorth India was coming to a head in Midnapore over the proposedpartition ofthe district; there was a generalreaction against all things British and that included the Church. As a rezult he had been forced to cut down on open addressesand bazaar preaching and for the time being had left off visiting the temple of the goddessKali in Chirimarshai, where the more fervent Hnda babus rnd pandits of the old school met every afternoon, and where in the past he used to confront them in evangelical mood, Bible in hand, in an attempt to explain away their shastras in the light of the Gospel and make them understandthat tme Salvation could be obained only through Jesus

Chist. SinceKali hadbecnadoptedby the revolutioneries as their patron,however,it was not a wise placefor an Anglicanpriestto be airing his 'loyalist' opinions.Oneof Singh'srivals,the ReverendLong of the AmericanBaptist Mission, had recendyhad an open air lantern-lecturein Ghatalbrokenup by politicalrowdiesshouting'Gandhi-gi iai'. Although they had eventuallybeenthrown out by some low-castesweeperswho wanted to see the slideof John show(a scripturaldramaentitledTheBeheading theBaptist)Mr Long had receiveda nastyfright. It wasa lessonlearned,but a stfongelementof competitionexisted betweenthe two missionaries and the ReverendSinghwas far from beinga coward.He wasyet to be seenin the bazaarsdistributing religioustracts and Epiphaniesand visitingthe educated Hindusin their housesor provoking religiousdiscussions at the Public Library, where the English-speakingand more enlightened,babas,the SubJudges, Deputy Magistrates,lawyers, schoolmasters, would meetand clerls, engineers and wealthyzamind,ors socializemost eveningsof the week.But true missionary work, the conversionof souls,wasbecomingincreasingly difficult due to the political situation. It wasthe main themeof the council meeting.Among the different points of view expressedstood the old optimistic belief that, whereasin the pastmost Christians had beendrawn from outsidethe paleof Hindu heriage, the time wasnowat handwhenthe bulk of India'smiddle classes wereaboutto breakinto the Church.This drew the cynical reply tlat wdet Swaraj (Home Rule) mass movementsof outcastsinto Christianity would diminish in turnand the middle classes would find little advantage ing to Christianity if it ceasedto be the religion of the ruling race.The most cogentargumentssupportedthe view that the new waveof nationalismwhich had swept over India sincethe war had accentuatedthe feeling of dissatisfaction amongeducatedChristiansandthe growing estrangementbetweenmissionariesand the community. 98

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The failure of the spread of Christianity was attributed to over-dependence on foreign missionaries and the more radical among them claimed to look forward to Home Rule, when Christianity would no longer be identified with the Raj. The Reverend Singh listened to the argument without enthusiasm for it was basically the same case that the S.P.G. had been putting forward for the last quarter of a century, that theaim of missionaryworkwas tocreate an indigenousChurch and to remove the European missionaries in favour of the native clergy as soon as feasible. But with whatever degree of self-criticism and conviction the idea was expressed,it was difficult not to connect the Society's anxiety to withdraw itself in favorir of diocesanization with lack of funds due to waning public interest at home in the missionaryideal. The balancewas redressed by Bishop Westcott,whopointed out that the missionto the Sunderbanshad all but collapsed due to the withdrawal of European missionaries before the Church had been sufficiently well established there, and that in these times of hardship the poverty of so many parishesmade it impossible for the missions to be self-supporting. Foss Westcott, who had succeededBishop Lefroy to the office of Metropolitan in r9r9, as a liberal and forward-looking Churchrnan, was avrare that the chief disability of the Anglican Church in India lay in its intimate ties with the Government, by which a Bishop could not be consecrated or a Diocese divided without the sanction of the Viceroy and Letters Patent from the King-Emperor in England; in its foreign and bureaucratic image, and in the official and socialbearing ofits senior clergy, who lived in an opulent style which Indians found hard to reconcilewith religious leadership. He had already set an example in this last respect by himself living a conspicuouslysimple life at Bishop'sHouse - he refusedto call this magnificentpalladian building, which lies opposite the Cathedral on Chowringhee and where the Council was now assernbledin the

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'the Palace' - but hc library, by its propet designation of was also obliged by the Government, of which he was a senior official, to mfitain the impressive dignity and detachment which was held to be the lodestar of Britislt rule in India, and had to equilibrate the responsibilities of high office with his role of helping to build a selfgoverning Indian Church. In the ReverendSingh's opinion the new Metropolitan was leaning too far too fast towards reform. Along with a few other clergy he was incensed by what he took to be the Bishop's tacit support for Gandhi when Westcott had describedhim as'the outstanding personality in India a,t the present time' and urged the Council that 'we ought iusdy to recognizethe principles for which he is standing'.l3 The Reverend Singh had litde time for Gandhi whom he regardedas a dangeroustroublernaker, far more dangerous than the terrorists because of his undoubted mystique which enabled him to hold sway over the superstitious mentality of the Hindu massesand which he extendedto a.ll his ploys, from the magic nonsenseof khadi (homespun) and the boycotting of foreign cloth, to what he considered the fundamentally dishonest doctrine of ahimsa (no* violence), which in the last two years of his civil disobediencecampaignshad led to little else but violenceand rioting over most of India. At St john's in Midnapore the Reverend Singh had preached thinly veiled sermons against the 'mahatma' and his disruptive nationalist politics, impressing upon his congregation that it was their duty to support the C.hurchand remain loyal to the government in tlese troubled times. With Home Rule in all men's thougha the position of Indian Christians in the community was a delicate one, but Singh reminded them that ptrsecution could only ternper the steel of a true Christian's faith. His own loyalty was beyond questionl as an Indian he could not ignore the'liberal'arguments being put forward by some of his colleagues for the Indianizatisn of the

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Church- for onethingtheyfavourid hisownadvancementl but he would not acceptthat rrform at the presenttime waseitherwiseor necessary, and felt stronglythat instead discussing its own in of futue termsof India without tlre British - a state of affairs he believedwould not come aboutfor a long time - the Churchshouldconcentrateon givingall its supportto the Government.It wasa reactior ary point of view, sharedby more Goverrunentchaplains than missionaries,but it was founded in the Reverend Singh'sabsoluteconfidencein the PaxBritannicq a c* fidencewhich even the massacreat Amritsar two yesrs before, although he strongly disapprovedof Gener.al Dyer's action,had left unshaken, ' After the Councilmeetingthe Reverend$inghremained in Calcuta for a few days stayingat his sistcr-in-la$fs houseon Blondel Streetin Ballygunge.He wasa popular visitor thereand Dr Nathanielalwayskept a bedreadyfor him, warnedonly of his comingby the soundof his voicc boomingup from the courtyardbelow,the heavyclackof his woodenkhwom (slippers)on the stonestairsand the delightedscrearnsof her little boy, Sonny. He enioyed thesevisits to the city and after completinghis priesdy duties, which might involve preachinga sermon at St Thomas'sor St Mary's in the hope of raisingmoneyfor the orphanage(neverfailing to point out that the cost of, living in Bengalhad more than doubledsincethe war), giving a talk on the missionarylife at his old schooland sometimeslending a hand for a day or two at the Oxford Mission,he would alwaysfind time to call in at Bishop's College,where he still had friends on the teachingsafi, thoughhe kept goingbackfor a differentreason.His days tJrerefirst asa studentand then asa traineefor the priesthood addedup to almost sevenye,us of his life. As he walkednow in the empty groundsof the collegebetween the fadedyellowochrebuildingswith their familiarpeeling greenshutters,admiring the spring flowersin the nerdSrkept bordersand.tubs,watchingthe operrbeakedC,slcuttr

crows drink from the emerald waters of the tank and observing how the lawn in the main quadrangle was still well-worn where tJre students played netball, he rejoiced in how little it had all changed since his day and so nourished the comforting ache of his nostalgia. The chapel bell began to peal on the same solemn note he would alwaysremernber. It seemedto relegatethe brush noise of native traffic in the busy Lower Circular Road to another world asthe white